Slow Motion.

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: An excerpt from Jeffrey Sachs’ excellent book, ‘The End of Poverty’. He puts it all into perspective:

The first cut at the problem — the simplest but still eye-opening — is to ask how much income would have to be transferred from rich countries to poor countries to lift all of the world’s extreme poor to an income level sufficient to meet basic needs. Martin Ravallion and his colleagues on the World Bank’s poverty team have gathered data to address this question, at least approximately. The World Bank estimates that meeting basic needs requires $1.08 per day per person, measured in 1993 purchasing-power adjusted prices. Using household surveys, the Ravallion team has calculated the numbers of poor people around the world who live below that threshold, and the average incomes of those poor.

According to the Bank’s estimates, 1.1 billion people lived below the $1.08 level as of 2001, with an average income of $0.77 per day, or $281 per year. More important, the poor had a shortfall relative to basic needs of $0.31 per day, or $113 per year. Worldwide, the total income shortfall of the poor in 2001 was therefore $113 per year per person multiplied by 1.1 billion people, or $124 billion.

Using the same accounting units (1993 purchasing-power adjusted US dollars), the income of the twenty-two donor countries of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) in 2001 was $20.2 trillion. Thus a transfer of 0.6% of donor income, amounting to $124 billion, would in theory raise all 1.1 billion of the world’s extreme poor to the basic-needs level. Notably, this transfer could be accomplished within the 0.7% of the GNP target of the donor countries.

It’s pretty crazy to read this and to think that if our governments actually gave what they promised, we could be pulling 1.1 billion people out of extreme poverty. They’d still be in poverty, there’s no doubt about that. But if one year’s worth of promised donations is enough to help one fifth of the world’s population in such a drastic way, then remind me again why we don’t put more pressure on our governments to do it?

Check out the stats of what the OECD countries give. These are the recent stats, for 2005: [From here somewhere.]

Judging purely on that, we can afford to give more.

And before some hotshot American comes along to tell me that ‘private donations’ in the US are really high:

The Development Assistance Committee of the OECD has compiled cross-country data on nongovernmental development assistance. The estimate for the United States is about $3 billion per year, an amount that raises the total US development assistance from 0.15 percent of GNP to 0.18 percent of GNP, still leaving the United States at the very bottom of the donor list.

Now, granted, these are 2003 rates that Sachs is citing, and all the OECD countries have improved a little since then, but even so — it’s still a pittance.

In 2003, the IRS released a special report about the richest four hundred taxpayers in the United States. These top 400 richest taxpayers had between them the grand total sum of $69 billion of income. This averages out to an incredible $174 million each, and is more than the entire year 2000 GDP of Botswana, Nigeria, Senegal and Uganda. Four countries! Those four countries had a total income of $57 billion in the year 2000, and were home to approximately 161 million people.

Here’s another little factlet:

The United States spent as much in Iraq for two weeks of support for the war (about $2.5 billion) as it does for an entire year of economic development assistance to Africa.

Still think we can’t afford to give more? Or wait, let me guess.. someone will point out that this donated money goes ‘down the drain’, right?

Here’s something for you:

Since the ‘money down the drain’ argument is heard most frequently in the United States, it is worth lookin at calculations for US aid. In 2002, the United States gave $3 per sub-Saharan African. Taking out the parts for US consultants, food and other emergency aid, administrative costs, and debt relief, the aid per African came to the grand total of six cents.

It’s not all negative, though. The ODA stats for 2005 were released recently, and the majority of OECD countries have increased their contributions. [Interestingly, Portugal decreased their contributions from 0.63% of GNI, to 0.21%. What's up with that?] With the added attention this issue has gotten thanks to projects like Make Poverty History, perhaps this upward trend will continue.

It’s our job to keep the pressure on our governments. We can afford it, and the people need it.

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And P.S. If you can find a copy of Sachs’ book at your local bookstore or library, I do recommend it. It’s economics and stats, but still a fairly easy read.