Increase aid:

It is so easy to sit back in our comfortable lives and nitpick to death the UN’ action plan to eradicate poverty and hunger. Indeed, no sooner had the long-awaited report, bearing the stamp of the Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs, hit the street last week than some economists took shots. But this is not a time for armchair quarterbacking. The UN report is a bold initiative. There will be and should be a debate about it as world leaders prepare to meet in September on the antipoverty goals, but it is vital that it not turn into another excuse for inaction.

Sachs’ report lays out, in real terms, the myriad ways to help poor people in simple ways like provide mosquito nets for children who live in malaria-infested regions or provide farmers in sub-Saharan Africa with soil nutrients to ensure healthier crops. Also, it is counterproductive to make the poor suffer because they have bad governments.

Sachs says now is the time to try the radically different approach of giving bigger amounts of real, quality aid directly to recipients on the ground.

The UN proposal calls for rich countries to increase their foreign aid to 0.7 per cent of GDP by 2015. In 2002, world leaders supported a declaration promising to “make concrete efforts”. Three years later, the US remains far behind. So, let’s get started. The world is waiting. — The New York Times