Tag Archives: Poverty

How do you change the way Australians think about poverty, let alone extreme poverty?

Posted in: Poverty, Reflection | May 1, 2013 at 9:56 am , by Guest Author/s

This year, Live Below the Line (6-10 May) in Australia aims to raise $2.5 million to support development work in Papua New Guinea and Cambodia. Kevin Hawkins, of The Oaktree Foundation, reflects on his experience living below and the complexities of changing how people think about poverty....

Sachs on sustainable development and the ‘SDGs’

Posted in: Aid Effectiveness, Alternatives in development, Climate Change, Sustainable Development | March 27, 2013 at 7:00 am , by Erin Nash

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While free market economics have led to rapid growth in many poor countries, its failures lead to unsustainable growth that taxes our planet. Erin Nash describes Jeffrey Sachs' advocacy for Sustainable Development Goals, and raises questions about their development....

Patience in development work is more than a virtue: it’s a necessity

Posted in: Aid Effectiveness, Alternatives in development, Self-help | March 21, 2013 at 9:00 am , by Aidan Craney

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Many of us are from countries that where impatience is the norm. As Aidan Craney explains, this can put us at a disadvantage working in places where values and sense of time are different and require us to learn patience....

Do transnational corporations have a place in Fair Trade?

Posted in: Poverty, Trade | February 25, 2013 at 10:55 am , by Anna Bowen

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Market success has not necessarily brought the returns to small producers originally promised by the Fair Trade platform. Anna Bowen examines the tension between free markets and Fair Trade, suggesting a need to renew the bottom-up model....

Goals are good, but do the MDGs need to be simplified?

Posted in: Aid Effectiveness, Alternatives in development | February 11, 2013 at 4:00 pm , by Scott Weathers

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This week we present three posts around the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). There are eight MDGs that need to be met by 2015. Given the unlikely even that all will be met, Scott Weathers suggests we condense the MDGs into something simpler....

Should we just give money to the poor?

Posted in: Alternatives in development, Microfinance, Poverty | November 14, 2012 at 3:12 am , by Tanya Cothran

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Cash grant recipients as part of Spirit in Action's program in Malawi

Have you ever been around a development program that was gradually getting more and more complicated? With underused administrators and layers of reporting and bureaucracy that never trickles down to benefit the students? In Just Give Money to the Poor, the authors suggest we skip the complex programs and just...

Did the Global Citizen Festival end global poverty?

Posted in: Fundraising, Reflection | October 23, 2012 at 5:00 am , by Sharlene Yang

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WhyDev's Brendan Rigby won the lottery to attend the Global Citizen Festival in New York. However, as he does not live any where near New York, Brendan decided to transfer the tickets to a friend who does. But on a few conditions. Sharlene Yang reflects on the event, asking why...

The power of sport in combating poverty

Posted in: Education, Gender, Sport & Development | August 7, 2012 at 7:30 am , by Isuru Devendra

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Sport is a fundamental part of many cultures and a source of enjoyment for billions around the globe. But what if it could be more? What if sport could be used to further international development and alleviate poverty? In his first post for WhyDev, Isuru Devendra explores these questions....

Sustainable development and poverty eradication through the prism of a Green Economy

Posted in: Alternatives in development, Environment | June 23, 2012 at 9:18 am , by Erin Nash

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As Rio+20 wraps up this week, Erin Nash delivers her third and final post on sustainable development. In her previous posts, she questioned whether sustainable development is an oxymoron and called for a paradigm shift. Now, she defines the mechanism to align with, and implement, this paradigm shift - the...

Micro-loans or micro-savings: what works?

Posted in: Microfinance, Poverty | May 21, 2012 at 8:22 am , by Tanya Cothran

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After her time in Malawi, Tanya Cothran began to question if micro-loans truly alleviate poverty or empower people, as we’ve heard so often over the past few years. Not the only sceptic, Tanya reviews David Roodman’s “Due Diligence: An impertinent inquiry into microfinance” and finds that for all the marketing...

Don’t cut Australian aid (except to UNESCO, FAO and other multilateral agencies)

Posted in: Foreign Aid | April 5, 2012 at 8:21 am , by Brendan Rigby

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Australia has just released its own report on the effectiveness of multilateral agencies and development banks. It was released in the same week of rumours that the Australian Government may put a promised increase on foreign aid on the backburner by 3-5 years. In this post, Brendan tells you what...

Literacy in Development: the flaws with using literacy rates to inform development policy (part 3)

Posted in: Education | April 4, 2012 at 1:00 pm , by Alex Grey

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In her third post on literacy and development, Alex Grey examines some of the issues associated with using literacy rates as a measurement to inform development policy, and shows how problematic approaches to monitoring literacy can lead to problems on the ground....

Education still a long way off for children with disabilities in poverty

Posted in: Disability, Education | February 22, 2012 at 8:00 am , by Lucy Daniel

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The cycle of poverty and disability can be broken, argues Lucy Daniel of CBM Australia. But, although the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and AusAID include girls and children with disabilities in education programs they fund in Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and the Philippines, what is happening on the ground...

Poor families simply do not love one another

Posted in: Poverty | January 10, 2012 at 8:30 am , by Brendan Rigby

13 comments

A dangerous theme and assertion appears to be emerging from Nicolas Kristof's writings; that 'poor families' simply do not love each other as much as non-poor. What is disturbing about such an influential and prolific writer holding this hidden perception is that he may not be the only one. In...

Why International Day of People with Disabilities deserves a star in everyone’s calendar

Posted in: Disability | November 30, 2011 at 11:59 pm , by Lucy Daniel

4 comments

International Day of People with Disabilities, on the 3rd of December every year, rounds out a year of International Days (IDs) for many different causes. Given that so many of these causes are worthwhile, what makes this day so deserving of a star in your calendar? In her first post...