- Make Poverty History.
- Every Child Matters.
- Millenium Development Goals.
- Abolish Youth Unemployment.
All of these have good intentions, but all seem disconnected from reality.
Jesus himself said "The poor will always be with us". Now I am not making a case for abandoning the poor, but in reality throwing money at countries or organisations which have shown themselves quite incapable of handling it isn't going to help anyone, least of all the poor. The home page of MPH is full of loaded political terms and devoid of ideas that will solve poverty long term. In fact, some of the actions suggested are little more than a left-wing rant ("vulture funds" "climate debt"). The only way to have any chance of making poverty history is to build democratic and commercial systems where the rule of law drives government. Throwing funds at dysfunctional states will only serve to impoverish ourselves and encourage and enrich the corrupt.
Every Child Matters.
Of course every child matters. This programme seems to be mainly to do with "joined up government". Whenever I hear the words "joined up government" I know what it means: people doing only what's in the official procedure instead of using their God-given brains. Every Child Matters so children can't paddle in water. Every Child Matters so teachers can't put sunscreen on children in their care. Every Child Matters so don't let them learn about losing; rather let them learn that if they lose, then it must be somebody's fault.
If every child does matter, why don't we do more to teach children about the world as it is, full of opportunity but also subject to disappointment? If every child matters, why don't we do a better job of educating our children so they are better able to cope with life and succeed?
Millenium Development Goals
Among these are the goal to reduce maternal deaths by 75% by 2015. This is surely a worthy goal. But we need to understand that many or most of those deaths come about because of society and culture in poor countries. These issues include women having more children (and each pregnancy is a health risk), poor care before during and after birth, sexual violence and poor condom use. All of these will take a considerable time to fix: setting a goal of 2015 is unrealistic.
Abolish Youth Unemployment
The obvious question is: How? I don't know any country in the world where there is zero unemployment. Now of course, we could abolish youth unemployment by introducing some kind of national service but I suspect not too many people would find that acceptable (but who knows)?
...
The common problem with all of these is that they set out an aspiration that is unrealistic. When the goal is missed, as was bound to happen, this is often followed by a tirade against right wing politicians or capitalism or both which almost by definition are uncaring and therefore must be to blame.
And this is the biggest pity of all, because these aspirations are often worthy goals. If we could reject the rhetoric and set realistic goals we would achieve a great deal more for those who desperately need our help.
These matters are too important to fall prey to petty politics.
Posts
