All entries for Thursday 01 December 2005

two cups of coffee per rich person

Writing about web page http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4486986.stm

That's all they're asking..hey, i'm not rich but i sure would like to help..just 2 cups of coffee…even i can do that..

World poverty has been an issue since forever..i'm reading this book, "Masters of Illusion" The World Bank and the Poverty of Nations.

Its so depressing. Although there were sound people with genuine interest and spirit to fight poverty, their ideas were simply manipulated. America and UK took that idea to gain world control implicitly by being the major contributors to that institution. Even Europe is at their whim.

The bad stuff i read? Corrupted governments(ie their leaders) who were seemingly portrayed as dumb and would simply ask for money without a proper structured plan, who would even DARE ask for money they wanted to make themselves appear succesfull in their respective countries.

The following is a caption from the book:

Not that there was a shortage of requests for the kind of loan that had given foreigh lending a bad name,Robert Gartner described an interview with CUban President Carlos Prio Socarras in the early 1950's

One of the things he wanted was a tunnel under Havana Harbour. It was commonly reputed that the prople in the know had brought up the real estate on the other side of the harbor, and if a tunnel was put under before they ever felt they could afford a tunnel, and you can do the same thing."

"Well," he said, "Mr Garner, you may be right, but its like a diamond on the hand, it's just something that shines – it just appeals to me."

Numerous projects failed (eg: Sardar Sarovar, India; Volta, Ghana; Bhumipol, Thailand) and had *massive environmental and social effects (eg: Displaced homes – with no resettlement plans, river blindness – due to exposure to DDT & dieldrin) which affected hundreds of thousands of people with each project..

The heads of bank? Americans traditionally. But they have been improving, just bit by bit. Each has their own style of leadership and want different things to happen with the money. Eugene Black, Woods, all had different contributions. But all made some mistakes. Mistakes with such massive side effects that they seem unforgivable and a breach of trust.

Haih, i talk a lot, but in the end..my contribution has yet to come to the world.

: 01 Dec 2005 10:47 |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem