A Fight against Poverty

Everytime I hear some major campaign against poverty, I tend to be very cynical about as it seems to be with every thing now a days. So when I hear about the Live8 concerts, I am kind of sceptical. The difference about this event is the scale of it. I have never seen a concerted action like this before. But will the momentum last or will the action started by a few righteous folks fall by the wayside after a few months.

Let us be realistic. Every natural disaster or crisis in the part of the world other than the developed nations have never got the level of attention it requires. There is always talk about it for a few months but then after a while, the world just moves on. We are just too self-centered to really bother about somebody dying in Mogadishu.

Like in the case of the Tsunami, $7 billion was pledged in aid. The regions havent seen more than 40% of it six months down the line. In fact, CNN regularly reports relief items stuck and perishing in warehouses just because of red tapism. That is ridiculous.

I do not think any such program can be a real success until the respective Governments are involved. Of course, it would be idealistic to think that suddenly one day, the governments would wake up and say hey we actually need to do some work. So I guess this is probably the best way forward.

However I salute those nameless folks who spend so much time on this without expecting to be on prime television. They are the true heroes.