Poverty
Goodooga. Postcode 2831
Goodooga, located 200 km from Lightning Ridge in Northern NSW has a population of around 270 people, of which more than 80% are Indigenous. Look it up yourself on googlemaps…it is real.
The town has a strong community spirit and is trying to survive by building grocery and petrol services to be run by a local cooperative.
What has this to do with extreme poverty you might ask?
Much has been written about aid- curse or cure. A lot has been written about the adoption of enterprise and design initiatives to overcome the effects of poverty (for example, child mortality in so-called “Third World Countries”). Some of the health interventions are in the form of aid, and some are made sustainable through enterprise.
These situations are complex, and not just about the grandeur of a large institution or the macro-economics of how statistics might be improved.
What actually happens among real people matters. There is no silver bullet delivered by any rock star or politician to solve these problems.
Please support the 10 City Bridge Run to highlight small actions which will make a big difference in showing that the impossible can be possible. Please sponsor me with $24 here.
6 good reasons to start in sydney
Good friends of mine asked why I hadn’t planned to start running in Sydney. Their argument was compelling and so I changed my plans to begin my journey here and then travel to New York. Here are the six main reasons that changed my mind:
- It reflects the originating point of the 10 City Bridge Run
- Many people have contributed to the birth of this project from Sydney in all sorts of ways, including the Global Launch event the previous week
- Australia is an important country from within the G20
- Before talking about poverty elsewhere, we should first note what happens in our own backyard
- The bridge metaphor is powerful in demonstrating the need to “close the gap”
- I can observe the United Nations conference on the Millennium Development Goals (20-22 September) from Sydney and get a sense of what impact, if any, it has for Australia
“Closing the Gap” is a phrase that has been used in relation to the comparative disadvantage between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. For example, average life expectancy differs by 17 years. Why?!
The metaphor of the bridge is a powerful way of communicating that to ‘close this gap’ it takes effort on the part of all of us, not just policy from governments and money from corporate organisations or philanthropic institutions.
Granted, the situation of extreme poverty is different from that of Indigenous disadvantage in Australia. Is it possible to see similarities in the root causes?
The question to address now is: where to run?
Sydney provides plenty of choice, and there are two courses which I favour. Let me know which you prefer, or of another if you can think of one:
- Sydney Harbour Bridge Run, covering 24 km and crossing 7 bridges. A spectacular run along many of the best kept secrets of Sydney. This is the same course as I ran last year for the 9 City Bridge Run.
- The Spit Bridge to La Perouse, covering a longer distance than 24 km and crossing two prominent bridges. I like this option suggested many months ago by Peter Lain. It is slightly longer, but gives a good voice to the bridge metaphor by finishing in La Perouse where Captain Cook first landed in Sydney
Welcome your feedback! Interested in a creative and challenging run that shows the character of the city, an historical perspective as well as a contemporary context of the issue.
Impossibly possible!
Thanks to my mate Scott Thompson in New York from Intersections International who gave me this perspective of something, like a crazy global endurance challenge being “impossibly possible”.
But let’s go back to the data and see how reframing a situation with information can achieve.
Hans Rosling used statistical data presented on a bubble graph to change how we might understand the world we live in. He makes the complex simple, and a brilliance for changing our worldview.
Is he right?
And hear what he has to say about the seemingly impossible being possible. Thanks to Rich Fleming from the Global Poverty Project for sharing this with me and discussing this perspective.
Is the seemingly impossible possible? Muhammad Yunus and the idea of a ‘poverty museum’
Professor Muhammad Yunus who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006, during the Skoll World Forum of Social Entrepreneurship held at Oxford earlier in 2006 spoke of his idea of a ‘Poverty Museum’ to be built in the future when extreme poverty is finally eradicated. As I listened to him speak, I remember thinking that this was an interesting idea, but maybe too fanciful, even impossible. But think again: we can now read Charles Dickens and learn about a form of poverty that is all but historical in the UK, or we can visit a museum in South Korea and learn about the poverty experienced after the 1953 Truce across a country which had a GDP the same as Ghana in 1960, and is now recognised with a strong economy.
Much has been written about this issue. Not everyone agrees with each other.
Five years short of the 2015 reporting date for the United Nations Millennium Development Goals and how is our progress?
In 2008, 8.8 million children died before their 5th birthday. 0.1% of these deaths were in the “Industrialised World”. A staggering 50% of the deaths occurred in sub-Saharan Africa alone.
This equates to more than 24,000 children who tragically die every day.
The silent killer is preventable illness caused from the effects of extreme poverty.
What might this be compared with?
To put this into some perspective, consider that this might be seen as equivalent with:
- 1 child dying every 3.6 seconds
- More than 16 children dying every minute
- A 2010 Haiti earthquake occurring every 10 days
- A 2004 Asian Tsunami occurring every 10 days
(Source: UNICEF The State of the World’s Children Special Edition: Celebrating 20 Years of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, November 2009, p.18-19)
It is not all bad news either. Taking a longer term view, since 1960 (when child mortality numbers were first being recorded) the annual number of child deaths has more than halved, from 20 million in 1960 to just 8.8 million in 2008. However, even though child mortality figures have shown a declining trend across the last 25 years, the situation which the world faces compounded by multiple systemic crises is still nothing short of outrageous: the effects of climate change mixed with the hyperinflation of world food prices, complicated by a looming economic stagnation of the West…
Progress has been made, but it is unevenly distributed. We continue to live in an imperfect world. Neither the UN nor the G20 has any magic wand to solve problems. The allocation of aid on its own will not solve this problem. Money makes a difference, but it is far from all there is. This year, natural events in places like Haiti and Pakistan show the constant demand for aid and support. Realistically, how much of this issue will be tackled by the G20 in the short space of time the leaders have together? How much impact might a ‘pictorial petition’ have with leaders meeting around an agenda influenced by complex issues with significant momentum? We could always do nothing and just complain about what a mess the world is in…
Let me provide an alternative and suggest you join us and become a bridge builder. Contributing a photograph while this crazy ’10 City Bridge Run global endurance challenge’ is being conducted might not seem like much, and might well represent nothing more than a symbolic act. However, what is the cost to you? It takes no time, and besides it is free. So snap off a photo and send it to us for inclusion in the book. And while you are at it, maybe open a conversation about this issue with others. More than likely, this is already something you are working on or have contributed towards. We recognise that many excellent initiatives are being undertaken by humanitarian workers quietly and selflessly making a difference. We would love to hear you thoughts.
Read about the outcome we hope to influence and the outputs we will be crowd-sourcing and co-creating through crowd-funding the necessary financial resources to make this work.
Nudge
Peter Singer in his provocative book The Life You Can Change raises the phenomena of a gentle nudge to slowly help shift community trends to overcome apathy. He mentions this in relation to a culture of giving.
Singer argues that even when we are choosing in our own interests, we often choose unwisely. So his writing here is about informing better decision making.
If major corporations, universities and other employers were to deduct 1% of each employee’s salary and donate the money to organisations fighting global poverty, unless the employee opted out of the scheme, that would nudge employees to be more generous and yield billions more for combatting poverty.
He writes that while the idea might sound odd now, but if a few corporations or institutions adopt it, it could spread.
Is this part of the solution? More money? If so, how should it be distributed and spent?
What other changes might be introduced through giving it a bit of a nudge over time?
Bono shows the power of a bridge
Bono, who has been a vocal advocate for issues including the eradication of extreme poverty, demonstrate the power in the metaphor of a bridge recently in Turkey. See the link here. You have to hand it to Bono- he gets around…in the photo in this blog he is featured at the 2008 World Economic Forum. Kudos!
Yesterday Hugh Jackman wrote an Op-Ed about global poverty in the Sydney Morning Herald. Many of the comments suggested that the only thing Hugh Jackman was qualified to speak about was acting…
Should we care about what anyone else thinks about global poverty, and is it right to give a louder voice to the rock-stars who step up to the microphone to advance this issue? Bono, Jackman, Jolie, now even Madonna!
Hugh Jackman in SMH: Help people to help themselves
Check out the article written by Hugh Jackman in today’s Sydney Morning Herald: “The best development programs help people to help themselves“.
Hugh talks about his “crash course on poverty and how it can be overcome”.
His conclusion?
History has shown development is possible, but not inevitable. Our challenge in the developed world is to help people to be more productively involved in the economy, to raise themselves out of poverty, and achieve a life with choices for their children – all without handouts. From what I have seen, economic development projects do work. They are the best answer to one of the biggest social issues of our time.
More interesting perhaps are the range of views in the comments trailing the article.
Achieving the impossible…just a matter of belief and perspective?
While running in Oxford last year, I passed the track where Roger Bannister broke the 4 Minute Mile in 1954. This was a surprise to me, as while I knew he had done that in the past, I didn’t know where it had occurred.
Stop and think just how much of the technology in our world today is made up of what was once considered impossible. The claim that a 4-minute mile was once thought to be impossible by informed observers was and is a widely propagated myth cooked up by sportswriters and debunked by Bannister himself in his memoir, The Four Minute Mile, 1955.
“This race made me realise that the four-minute mile was not out of reach,” Sir Roger Bannister, 2 May 1953 after running 4:03.6 and shattering previous 1945 standard record.
The complexity of extreme poverty is not something to just wish away. The human cost is staggering. The amount spent on aid across the last 30 years beggars belief.
This year is a critical moment to grip up the situation of extreme poverty affecting children in our world. The United Nations is committed to a 2015 timeline. The US has today announced the end of American combat operations in Iraq. The G20 Summit being held in Seoul can take a more informed view of the past and projected impact of the global financial crisis.
Five years might sound like a long time, but it will pass very quickly. There is a great sense of urgency with which we as a global village need to address this problem of seeking an eradication of extreme poverty looking first at a time horizon of 2015. It is one of many problems to address. In Australia, the state of Indigenous health and gap in life expectancy remains a disgraceful legacy of the past. The competing demands across our global village are so complex it is sometimes difficult to comprehend.
“Are you crazy!?” some people ask me about this global endurance challenge, recognising the difficulty in what I am seeking to undertake, just from a logistical perspective alone. I agree, it is definitely a “stretch goal”.
Is it possible:
- to achieve the 10 sub-marathons inside one month
- to successfully finance the journey
- to coordinate the book “Above the Line” so that it is published in time for the G20 Summit
- for a copy of the book to be delivered to each world leader attending the G20 Summit…
While these things might seem fanciful and far removed from the earnest consideration of the reality of extreme poverty, I believe they also are powerful ways to communicate the ability to achieve what is believed to be outside of our grasp.
I can’t do this on my own, and I seek your support. Please consider sponsoring the development of the book “Above the Line”. Together, we can make a difference.
Hans Rosling provides proof! The seemingly impossible is possible.
Now and again you come across one of those people who somehow makes the complex simple, and in doing so can turn our assumptions on their head. Hans Rosling, hailing from Sweden makes an interesting twist to how we might perceive development and poverty.
This TED talk from 2007 is worth watching. It was Rich Fleming from the Global Poverty Project who put me onto this information, as I was discussing my intention of doing this run many months ago. He suggested that this question: “Is the seemingly impossible possible?” was worth asking.
In five years the 2o15 deadline arrives for reporting on the achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.
How can we best use the information and framing that Hans presents to change our own perspective?
Was this useful for you or just an amusing presentation?
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