Join the Heifer community!

Why we can—and must—change the world

The humanitarian Albert Schweitzer, who spent much of his life working in Africa, once identified a crisis of confidence among the wealthy nations, a feeling of helplessness in the face of overwhelming facts. “It will ever remain incomprehensible,” he said, “that our generation, which has shown itself so great by its achievements in discovery and invention, could fall so low spiritually as to give up thinking.”

Today, nowhere is this crisis of confidence so clear as among those concerned about world hunger. We are overwhelmed by the media’s images, by the hopeless eyes of a weakened child, and by the sheer numbers, the idea of 1.2 billion people struggling to survive on less than a dollar a day. We seem paralyzed by the scale and complexity of the problem.

And yet, at the same time, in hundreds of thousands of villages in the developing world, the work has already begun. A rapidly growing number of people and groups are using their imaginations, envisioning a better life. By the millions, they’re transforming those visions into reality. So how do we jump-start the critical engagement of Americans—both individuals and our government—and help push the worldwide efforts to the next level?

As Lyndon Johnson said, “It’s not doing what’s right that’s difficult. It’s knowing what’s right.” Engaging our country in an end-poverty movement must begin with a massive change of mind, a new education. We must understand not just what has to be done, but how we can do it. We must be able to imagine a smaller, more connected world; a world in which our actions directly affect the lives of our distant neighbors, people just like us who we may never meet, but whose lives are inextricably bound up with ours. And then we need to begin to live in that world. We must turn that imagination into committed action, side-by-side with our poorer neighbors.

The Foundation for Ending Poverty

We know enough about poverty and hunger today to know that the issue is not one of scarcity, but of access to resources. Poverty and hunger are symptoms. They are “dark spots” on the global map—evidence of places that are not connected, as they should be, to the resources of the rest of the world. And yet the time is right for that to change. For the first time in human history, three conditions have made the end of extreme global poverty possible. They are the spread of  democracy, the explosion of civil society, and the basic know-how to help the world’s poorest begin to lift themselves out of poverty.

Spread of Democracy

In 1984 I visited a rural parish on Mindanao, a southern island of the Philippines. Under President Ferdinand Marcos, Mindanao was terribly poor. Paramilitary goons brutally terrorized anyone suspected of subversion, which included such pursuits as herbal medicine and organic farming. As a result of the repression, local development was almost completely thwarted.

By the time I returned a year later, Father Tullio Favali, a Catholic priest I stayed with who was known locally as a voice for the poor, had been shot dead.

I returned to the Philippines a year later, just as Marcos held a snap election to reinforce his legitimacy to the outside world. He claimed to have won, but the people of the Philippines knew that the true winner was Cory Aquino, and I joined the million citizens who jammed into Manila’s stadium to cheer Aquino and insist that Marcos cede power. The next few tense, fearful days of demonstrations ended with Marcos leaving the country. Finally, democracy was dawning on that Pacific archipelago.

This was not an isolated incident. In the final 25 years of the last century, about 40 nations overcame their authoritarian regimes to become relatively democratic. More than half of the world’s people now live in a country that elects its leaders. While the results of this global revolution are far from perfect, this recent spread of democracy is laying the foundation for the end of extreme poverty.

As economist Amartya Sen points out, “no substantial famine has ever occurred in any independent and democratic country with a relatively free press.” Suddenly (in terms of human history), hundreds of millions of people can engage in organized activities that address their most immediate needs: access to income, food, clean water, education and health care. At the ballot box, they have some say in the priorities of their government. Until there is enough freedom for people to protest, to freely engage in issues that affect or concern them, there can be no real change. And that change often means the difference between life and death.

Explosion of Civil Society

People, like Father Favali, who live in unstable countries have often been intimidated, jailed or killed for organizing around such simple issues as agricultural development or literacy. But as the dictator-generals of Latin America, Africa and elsewhere have retired to their villas, the spread of democracy has gone hand-in-hand with the unprecedented growth of civil society—organizations such as local community groups and more formal nonprofits. In the last few decades, literally millions of nonprofits or community groups have sprouted. India alone boasts between 1 and 2 million!

In How to Change the World, author David Bornstein points to some of the reasons for the emerging citizen sector around the world: the rapid growth in economies and in adult literacy rates, the women’s movement and communications technologies. In short, he says, “more people today have the freedom, time, wealth, health, exposure, social mobility, and confidence to address social problems in bold new ways.”

These groups are the building blocks of progress because individuals cannot sustain significant social change, only communities can. Locally to internationally, they are taking on the challenges of everyday life, from health care and education to agriculture and credit. This new, vast infrastructure that stretches from emerging middle classes to the world’s poorest is the second foundation upon which ending poverty is built. It represents hundreds of millions of people who will do the heavy lifting to improve life for themselves and their neighbors. 

Know-How

In the six decades since World War II, every imaginable approach to development of poor countries has been tried, leaving a wake of mistakes—from rusty tractors to padded Swiss bank accounts—and billions of wasted dollars. But these experiments in what does and does not alleviate poverty have turned up quite a few approaches that actually work.

One of the best-known solutions is the Grameen Bank’s method of giving the poorest people access to micro-loans. From founder Mohammad Yunus’ initial $27 loan to 42 poor families in a Bangladesh village to create small businesses, the bank has grown to reach 50 million Bengalis (almost all women) and spread its model to more than 40 countries. The success of this approach won Yunus a Nobel Peace Prize.

Another Nobel Prize winner, Wangari Maathai, founded the Greenbelt Movement in which Kenyan women have planted 40 million trees to improve the environment and build community empowerment for other projects.

Heifer International has reached millions in its approach to community-based development through intensive training and the gift of quality livestock. Its requirement that each family “pass on the gift” from their animal’s offspring to another family spreads both economic impact and dignity.

A close look at these and other campaigns reveals a common strength: a practical, simple, methodical approach to solving a problem. As organizations like Heifer have found, even the smallest progress sparks positive changes in all areas of society and strengthens communities. Today, the most ambitious and synergistic effort is the U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for reducing poverty and improving health and the environment by 2015. In particular, 192 nations, including the United States, have committed to “reduce by half the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day…. [and] the people who suffer from hunger.” These agreed-upon targets are clear and inspiring, but they’re also far from being realized. Nevertheless, they provide a strong sense of direction for what can be achieved if the world’s wealthy nations embrace the needed changes on the scale required.

Can we do our part?

So what is the role of Americans in all this? As the nation with the largest impact on the global economy, the United States is obligated to help lead the charge to end hunger in two fundamental ways: by providing funds (and most will need to come through the government we elect and direct), and by investing our human resources.

As a nation, we are extremely wealthy, and much of that wealth is, to put it bluntly, squandered. As individuals, Americans are generous and caring; but our generous inclinations are not reflected in U.S. government priorities. In 1970, governments of the rich nations, including the United States, pledged to spend 0.7 percent of their Gross National Product on development assistance. Yet the U.S. lags behind almost every other nation in fulfilling this commitment, with 0.17 percent in 2006.

What would it cost to end poverty and reach the millennium development goals? Depending on the source, the U.S. share is somewhere between $25 to 36 billion each year to cover the United States’ leadership role in providing basic health and nutrition, basic education, reproductive health and family planning services, and water sanitation services to those in the world who need it most.

Somehow, I think we could find the funds. It is simply a matter of our priorities, at the corporate, government, and individual levels. Spending in the billions is commonplace for big business (as well as for some individuals). Americans spend $2 billion on fantasy football and $11 billion on bottled water each year. And $36 billion is no more than three-and-a-half weeks of U.S. military spending (which totalled $540 billion in 2006).

These funds need not find themselves in the hands of local warlords or corrupt governments. They work their way through assistance organizations. Much of the good work going on today is focused on building capacity and scaling up a development network that is both effective and transparent. As Jeffrey Sachs put it, it’s hard to put mosquito nets in a Swiss bank account.

Closing the Gap

 If Americans can afford to help end hunger and poverty, what’s stopping us? I said earlier that our lack of engagement is due in part to a feeling of helplessness and of being overwhelmed. I also think that just as it can be hard to understand how we can help, it can be hard to see precisely how our lifestyles and actions, and the policies we support, actually serve to increase hunger and poverty.

But consider just one example. Countries whose extreme poverty is ignored are unstable, and unstable countries are breeding grounds for terrorism and war. Imagine the cost, in dollars and in our children’s lives, of our government’s intervention in the many resource wars and power struggles and terrorist acts that would result from global instability and inequity. The benefits of ending poverty will spread far beyond the improved lives of those who move from despair to hopeful self-reliance.

In other words, no matter what we do, we are making a choice. All of our actions, good and bad, have worldwide consequences. What will it take for us to begin to make the right choices? 

“Closing the Gap” is a methodology championed by Bill Foege, who currently advises The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on health initiatives. The methodology identifies manageable steps to achieve an important but challenging goal.

In Closing the Gap, you start by identifying where you want to end up, and where you are today. Then you focus on the gap between the two and the steps needed to get from today to the goal. Below, I have applied the technique to the problem of global poverty.

Extreme Poverty has ended. (The goal.)

No longer do vast numbers live on less than a dollar a day. Those who lived in poverty did most of the work toward this goal, but they were aided with appropriate help from wealthy nations.

The U.S. works alongside other countries to end global poverty. Every sector—government, business, non-profits, etc.—is involved in the challenge. The interventions are global, appropriate, sustainable, and have been tested and proven.

The U.S. is scaling up engagement, adjusting the process as it goes along. Americans have joined with international efforts and are helping to build capacity in the organizations and programs with good track records.

Ending world hunger becomes a widespread social movement in the U.S. The “tipping point” has been reached. We are strengthening our commitment and finding the right responses. We have drawn on our deepest and best values to do the right thing.

Transformational education of the public has led to growing willingness to act. Various forms of education have transformed people into participants in efforts to end hunger and poverty. There are many ways to learn, to reach the widest possible audience. Creative new thinking is speeding up the end-poverty movement in all wealthy countries. Participants are challenged, inspired, and ready to act at a more meaningful level.

The U.S. is capable of a key role, but action is limited. (The current situation.)

Adding a Zero

My friend Gary Gunderson talks about the need to “add a zero” to our efforts to address the global HIV/AIDS pandemic. Where we are spending $1 billion, he says, we need to spend $10 billion. And just as important as adding a monetary zero is adding a participatory zero. We must add a zero to the numbers of dedicated people working to end hunger, the hundreds of thousands of strategists, educators, economists, religious leaders, artists, fund raisers, politicians, volunteers, scientists and others.

So, if we’re currently graduating 500 experts in a certain field—say tropical soil science—we need to graduate 5,000. But in addition to the experts and specialists, volunteers and leaders in every field must join the effort. In fact, it is hard to imagine someone who cannot contribute their talent. So where does the impetus for this change come from? It comes from us.

We must be part of the effort to educate others about the problem and its solutions. Being knowledgeable about the issues and committed to spreading that knowledge is something every one of us can do. As our efforts multiply, so will the fruits of our labors. This is how social change happens: Knowledge becomes action. I saw it happen for the people of the Philippines in 1985, and I know it can happen with world hunger. What seems like a problem of insurmountable proportions can be relegated to history, the casualty of a new global consciousness. The seeds that have been planted here and worldwide will become a revolution.

Like all revolutions it begins with the individual. We can tackle the problem with the energy and generosity that are the hallmarks of the American people. But we must also tackle it with confidence, the confidence that comes from understanding what we are capable of. We must not, as Albert Schweitzer said, give up thinking. We know that we can change the world. Now we
must begin.

“Among all the possible choices, I decided that the most serious and universal problem is the growing chasm between the richest and the poorest people on earth. Citizens of the ten wealthiest countries are now 75 times richer than those who live in the ten poorest ones, and the separation is increasing every year, not only between nations but also within them. The results of this disparity are root causes of most of the world’s unresolved problems, including starvation, illiteracy, environmental degradation, violent conflict and unnecessary illnesses… But tragically, in the industrialized world there is a terrible absence of understanding or concern about those who are enduring lives of despair and hopelessness. We have not yet made the commitment to share with others an appreciable part of our excess wealth.”