The End of Poverty

Hello, everyone~!

I just finished watching the volleyball match Japan vs Thailand. The result was 3-2, and Japan won. the Japanese national team has just won the ticket to the Olympics in Beijing yesterday. It's nice to hear that we can watch our national team play against other countries, but I'm a bit worried because the team is not strong as the media wants them to be. Hmmm.....

Anyway, I'm going to talk about the book I just finished reading called "The End of Poverty" by Jeffrey D. Sachs. The author is the director of the Earth institute at Colombia University.

I still remember one of the AGU 2006, Rikko, bought this book when we stayed in Maryland. I had been interested in the book since then, but I missed the chances to do so because there's 500 pages! Moreover, I couldn't decide which editions I should try, English or Japanese.

But this time, I finally decided to read this book. I found that there's the Japanese edition at my university's library. Actually, I don't like reading the books which are translated in Japanese very much, because what the authors want to say may change and even though I understand that it's much much easier for me to read books translated in Japanese, I want to understand what authors say by reading what's literally written on books in the original language, in my case, English. Hmmm.... it seems that I should have read the English edition???

Well, whatever language is, it's an interesting and meaningful reading. In this time of the world, the power that each of us has seems so powerless to change the situation that we give up trying to do so from the beginning even if we know the fact that so many people in the world are suffering poverty, and we need to do something. The trigger for change isn't there yet, however.

When we hear the word "poverty", it seems impossible to improve the situation that we face now because we always think that there's too many obstacles, and that the money we give to countries that struggle against poverty isn't helpful.

At the same time, however, can it be said that it's our mistake not to be able to eliminate poverty? This is one of the questions that the author gives us, and he gives the views on the current situation and the specific solutions for it. He understands that people always want the perfect solution that eliminates all of negative factors such as poverty, aids, malaria, child labor, reproductive health problem, and so on. But as we might imagine, there isn't that kind of solution at all. So, he explains what to do for each of the problems. If, the countries that we call "developed countries" pay just a little bit from their budget, we definitely can eliminate poverty. But we just can't even now. Is it because we don't have an ability to do so, or we don't have moral sense to help others??? Hmmm..... it's gotten me wondering.

One of the things I found interesting was that canceling all the debt is actually a good thing to do. When the G8 meeting was held, the world wide campaign called "Make Poverty History" often said that the debt should be cancelled. At the time, I just couldn't understand why because I thought about the possibility that the countries that had the debt would lost their credibility and I thought the situation would get worse. According to the author, however, the situation would get better because the economic situation would be stabilized. Is it really so? I think I need to read more books about this.

If possible, everyone who is interested in the world's situation should read this book because it helps us imagine what each of the countries that are struggling against poverty are really like, and how they try to make a difference. Most importantly, it definitely would make you realize that we are literally lucky, we have to have hope for better even if we feel powerless. This book will give you the power to keep believing! ^^

Well, that's all for today!
Oh, by the way, I'm looking forward to talking to you on the next chat!