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