Our Common Humanity in the Information Age. Principles and Values for Development

Shared Responsibility and Our Common Humanity
The entire world has a vested interest in ensuring that poverty becomes an anachronism. 
Humanity’s shared interest in poverty eradication has great humanitarian benefits for all 
people. But there are several practical benefits to be had as well. It is when we realize 
these within the larger scope of the poverty problem that all people can contribute to the 
solution. Whether at the state, institutional or individual level, everyone can do their part 
to help those in our world that need it most. Ultimately that effort will be the greatest 
testament to our common humanity.

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Chapter VII – Shared Responsibility and Partnerships | 143 
Resources, Problems and Solutions
In order to achieve the ideals of shared responsibility and shared values, we need to 
establish shared education about the basic principles and global crises with which we are 
dealing.
There are currently about 300 million sleeping sites in malaria-ridden sub-Saharan 
Africa. Insecticide-treated bed nets cost 5 dollars each and protect two children for 5 
years. Therefore, 1.5 billion dollars buys five years of protection. The US spends 1.5 
billion dollars on the military every day. Shockingly, one day’s expenditures are enough 
to provide five years of protection. It seems that we already have the resources for ending 
extreme poverty. It is just of matter of having those resources comply with our new 
shared values and responsibilities, and flow accordingly.
Why is that we spend 550 billion dollars on a military approach to security and only 4 
billion dollars, less than one hundredth, on helping the poorest parts of the world? We 
spend 5 dollars out of every 100 for the military but only 15 cents on development. This 
represents a gross misinterpretation of what our security needs are. We know that 
international conflict and threats to national security arise from the prevalence of 
extremely impoverished and hungry people living in unstable conditions, yet we continue 
to spend money on arms of warfare and bombs, which create even greater dislocation and 
loss of life. There exists a terrible public misunderstanding and a lack of awareness. It is 
important that we do not leave this task up to politicians - we must get the public 
involved as well as create and promote shared values and responsibilities. The key to 
ending this global crisis is public awareness and public understanding.
The solution is simple and affordable. 70 cents out of every 100 dollars can end it; more 
and better aid, trade, debt cancellation can end it. Extreme poverty is so extreme that it 
kills. The most basic needs of 1.2 billion people are not met each day.
Imagine this scary, but prevalent, situation: One young girl with AIDS, one young boy 
with malaria, and an old man with tuberculosis all share one bed. Two are laying head to 
toe, and the one most likely to die first quietly perishes underneath the bed. There is no 
electricity to operate past sundown. No electricity to refrigerate medicine. And no clean 
water in the entire facility. One doctor must take care of 60,000 local residents under 
these horrifying conditions.
If we don’t pay attention to the 20,000 voiceless and impoverished people that perish 
each day, we are putting at risk our own lives and the lives of our children. These victims 
face chronic hunger and under-nutrition, their bodies can’t mount proper immune system, 

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144 | Our Common Humanity in the Information Age 
there is no safe drinking water but dirty contaminated water must be used every day, 
people must live with mosquitoes with malaria but there is no treatment or bed nets for 
miles. By 2015, we must aim to make investments to fight malaria, AIDS, get clean 
drinking water, help farmers to grow more food and enjoy the benefits of their own Green 
Revolution. It is our shared responsibility to lift them onto the first rung of the ladder of 
development.
In this new age of information and communication technology, we as young leaders from 
around the world can do the following with greater ease: send a message that the global 
community is one family with common values such as promoting the concept of equality 
and fairness; strengthen the United Nations as a positive force for good, based on 
inclusion and partnership; promote global and public goods – whose benefits reach across 
national borders, generations and populations, including equity, eradication of 
preventable disease, environmental sustainability and peace and security; and build 
awareness that the ecological balance of the planet is fragile and is easily compromised 
by common threats to mankind, such as poverty, climate change, global warming, natural 
disasters, famine, and violent conflict. If there is no effort to deal with these grave threats, 
our common destiny is at stake.
Let’s follow through on what our governments promised and give less than 1 percent to 
make the world safer and more prosperous: one where our children will be secure. Let us 
work to eradicate poverty and help to eliminate terrorism, threats to security, conflict, 
violence, hunger, and the loss of life.
The fact that we can eradicate extreme poverty means that we need to. To walk away is 
dangerous to our security.

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