A Question Going Global: What Will It Take to End Poverty?

International taxation A system by which all countries in the UN according to their GDP pay a small tax that goes directly into a pool to be utilized by UN specified/approved aid agencies engaged in heavily impoverished states.

Innovative and lateral initiatives need to be employed to take money as the only or primary means of exchange of value out of the equation. I wish I had some proven examples, but still a work in progress...the World Bank however has the resources to lead this thinking and develop the examples of alternatives that get individuals cooperating using alternative (and maybe more satisfying/higher utility) means of exchange that indeed counter poverty and increase prosperity sustainably. So Dr Kim, good luck with achieving your goal.

Like most people, I too feel that we need better infrastructure and health care and education. But I also believe that each of us must try, in our individual capacity, what we can to solve the problem. Each one can teach one to fish, so he does not have to beg for lunch the next day. Our effort in this direction is currently taking the route of a global competition, in London in October 2012. You can read about it here http://www.3d4dchallenge.org/finalists/just-3d-printing/. We hope we can do it and make a difference. Thanks.

One major cause of poverty is poverty-level wages. One major way to stop poverty-level wages is to ensure that workers can organise in unions and fight for a living wage. To end poverty, we need to stop corporations stopping workers getting together to help themselves. http://wp.me/p2JJ6W-m

1. The 3.6 world GDP is lost to corruption. Must be combated. 2. Transparency rules for national and international officials working in the State and International Organizations. 3. Legislate and enforce tax havens and avoid the anonymous capital hideouts. 4. Declare as crimes against humanity and Private state corruption, punishing with imprisonment and returning resources to the state. 5. Agreeing with the owners of the property rights of inventions that improve food production to release by international payment. 6. Declare as world heritage water resources, penalizing their destruction or damage. 7. Lawmaking work of transnational corporations to compete on equal condciones that SMEs. 8. Declaring monopolies harmful to the global economy. regards, Daniel Veliz

Too often we see people move forward in life. Their learning experience is articulated as 'what do they do for a living' or 'if they have a family or dont'. But all of us learn from birth. We learn a great deal and accumulate learning right up until our last breath. At times during our life we formaly or haphazardly use this learning. We pass some of it on casually or with a goal in mind. But what do we do with all of that left over learning that hasnt been added back to society or industry or to the environment. We take it with us. For some we are reborn to use some of it again. But there is more we can do I am sure to add value to the world. To teach children who may otherwise not learn what we know. More importantly we may not have a chance to trully explore with others who we have become. What I think we should do is start a conversation and apply action to acknowledging the learning people accumulate and rather than warehouse people in aged accomodation or through isolation and exclusionary behaviours, push people away from the mainstrem, we need to harness that learning. We need to know what level of creativity each individuals learning has built and help people in their senior years explore how this can contribute to the world and indeed their own public identity. This will not only build respect in the community for older citizens but will utilise lifetimes of invested learning. We see a lot of poverty and much of this is not supported with education, yet we have a whole level of citizenship with the capacity to share what is learnt and help bridge some of the gap.

I believe poverty is not function of employment only .Poverty is can eliminated if we train,distribute the resources and opportunities equally . Open up the remote parts of the world through provision roads,electricity and water.This will spur up growth,inject money into the circulation . In fact we should stop adding development into the already large urbans areas.Let us focus to develop the rural areas and open up regards.This will check the rural-urban migration Silas Katam

we must study the ergonomics of low income people and their day today activities according to that adopt the technologies with proper mechanization in the harder jobs especially in the agriculture sector, because knowingly or unknowingly, peoples in the third world countries depend on farming/agriculture for their bread winning activities, those are struggling with physical as well as mental related illness, and their low earnings goes to healing activities, once we made them comfort in manual works then they are get some surplus in earning and access good nutritive food, sanitation every thing. and one more thing all the time policy makers made the miss interpretation and way to voluntary poverty in the world economic scenario. every developing policy should reach the grass root level in the world economic system then get good results in poverty alleviation.

I disagree with the idea that a (special) fund can help ending poverty because poverty is a symptom of the sufferings -- not the cause (in most cases/countries) of it. Funds can help reduce a bit but cannot end it. Funds create many problems in the process of solving poverty. Obviously, treating a symptom can hardly help cure a disease. According to my understanding and experience, the main cause of poverty is political corruption. The poor and less-educated people do understand economics but what they do not understand is how get rid of the grips of political exploitation by educated elites in the society. They are locked in a trap of public-private interface of (good) governance. Good governance (no corruption) is a public good but controlled by political elites as a private good to make money. The supply of good governance is driven by the theory of public choice which cannot be tackled by the poor because of collective action problem. The poor need help but not for how to get out of poverty-- they can do it by themselves; they do need help on how to get rid of "legitimate" exploitations by the people in power. In most poor countries, there is no rule of law but law of rulers. If anyone, or any organization, can help in this line, poverty will disappear. Is there any help available for this?

Dear WB President, Greetings and good wishes on your taking over charge of WB. I congratulate your good idea of seeking everyone's opinion to seek and arrive at poverty elimination. May I suggest that UN or WB lead by example? Someone said that an ounce of example is worth a ton of advice, so think of cutting costs somewhere and pooling it on a fund to address some of the worst-affected or the world's poorest?

Develop independent incentive structures for each particular country (based on GDP, population, average per capita income) as to how they can reward independent and collective donors in their efforts to fight poverty. These incentives need not be strictly monetary beneficial, but could be relief from certain national duties. Overtime, develop citizenship minded individuals through these incentives to create a full passion union to fight and end poverty. That should be the sustainable and existing infrastructure in creating a better world in general.

The debt incurred by dictators, and dubious capitalist development loans is the problem. We must have the World Bank, and IMF give significant debt relief for at least the worst loans given since 1973. The debt payments are demanded first by the WB and IMF from the owing country, before domestic Education and Health care, welfare. If these massive payments are removed, the poor can develop control over their own affairs. Capital flows must be controlled by countries, and free trade must mean free of monopolies, instead of tarriffs.

Education is the basic need for every human being which can make them capable of employment, self employed or resource person, enterprenuers, professionals. If we can educate each and every children, or person we can inspire them to learn new things, innovation and creation. They should be taught about their economy and should inspire that what they need to make their economu rich. So, education and learning can eradicate the poverty not null though but can be minimised at impressive figures. Learn to earn.

Countries affected by extreme poverty should pass laws that every able-bodied adult should be engaged in some gainful employment.Citizens especially the youth should undergo vocational training. After training they should be offered tool kit loans repaya ble after reasonable period of employment. Governments should construct workshops,shops, market structures,venues and areas with reqisite environment for employment.Those in employment should pay some taxes. It should be mandatory to save for the future. Good health, education, jobs,food etc are all valid

Knowledge of where,what,when and how , are fundamental to solving any human problem .Poverty issues are critical location-based problem.Like Robert Glasser(2011) puts it'Poverty causes disaster and disaster causes poverty',hence,poverty eradication, being dynamic, requires critical geospatial database for effective tracking,reduction and monitoring.Poverty hotspots based on community,social class,history and gender are essental geospatial data for a strategic poverty eradication.Empowerment programmes are inevitable but a proactive and persistent response through a strategic mapping and eradiction of poverty vulnerability hotspots is fundamental.

In my opinion I think more attention should be directed to constructing a robust food production, productivity and supply, and agricultural systems, which are achievable thus: Firstly, by recognizing as in-alienable people’s rights to food and right to minimum social safety system. People should be allowed to partake in the fresh pact for food and agriculture; Secondly, by providing fundamental social protection method. This guarantees a fail-safe against shocks on those vulnerable to poverty and counteracts the negative effects there-from. We must focus on financial transparency and accountability practice and transition method to avert dependency; Lastly, but not the least, to fight poverty, we must know where poverty resides, where people (the victims) who are affected by poverty are and how poverty varies among them. We should formulate voices of those vulnerable to poverty; they must be exposed; and not shut up anymore. To do this, we should improve on the hunger awareness and feedback systems. Adopting the new ICT’s is indispensable as they can augment the competence of the system.

End curruption at all levels and in all countries. it solves 10001+ problems.

Dear President Kim As you are very aware of, only 50 years ago, Korea was one of the poorest nations in the world with its people suffering from dire poverty. Park, Chung Hee, former President of the Republic of Korea led this small Asian country into an unprecedented era of modernization. The Saemaul Undong, the driving force of Korea’s economic development, has been drawing attention from international organizations and developing countries as an outstanding role model for economic development. You have also emphasized the lessons that developing countries can learn from Korea and the excellence of its move from an agrarian to an industrialized modern society. In the past, Korea was often represented as an archetypal basket case. However, people were inspired by the Saemaul Undong under the slogan, “We’ll make it if we try! We can do it! Let’s improve our lives!” The world’s poorest nation was transformed in only a few decades into an industrial powerhouse taking a leading role globally. I am very sure that the Saemaul Undong can still inspire developing countries working along with the Korean Wave. Our Park Chung Hee School of Policy and Saemaul at Yeungnam Univerisyt is a professional educational and research institute which fosters practical and theoretical talents by offering professional and hands-on curriculum-based know-how from 35 years of research and education in the field of Saemaul Undong. It focuses on emphasizing such Knowledge Sharing Program as Saemaul Undong. Our School’s slogan is “Think New, Act Together, Share Globally.” That is, ‘Saemaul Undong is for everyone’. I found that the JJ/WBGSP, one of the scholarship programs run by your World Bank Iintitute, is contributing to the economic development of poorer countries by nurturing human resources in the field of economic and social development. These goals match the vision and strategy of our School. Therefore, I would like to suggest that our PSPS of Yeungnam University be permitted to conduct a part of the JJ/WBGSP Program. I sincerely hope that the master’s program which our PSPS offers will be designated as a component in the partnership program of your excellent JJ/WBGSP Program. This will allow us to continue to lead the glocalization of the Saemaul Undong together with the World Bank and contribute to the development of sustainable solutions for poverty and co-prosperity across the global community.

The UN should put a price of military spendings of countries under its reach. For example America spends 902.2 billion US dollars on defence and say 0.03% (270.66 million US dollars) of that was spend increasing the productivity of say Africa a substantial amount of schools and workplaces could be made increasing jobs and education of hotspot for poverty area. The UN should propose a international law to put less money into making weapons to destroy and more into stabilising the worlds poverty.

Sustainable Development Strategy- CDM is a key tool for developing countries to get out of poverty, to achieve rapid sustainable development. Strategic approach: Arising from the need to solve the urgent problems of waste everywhere and to reduce greenhouse gas, from urban to rural areas, WB and developed country governments and international organizations should use the (Clean development Mechanism) CDM’s design and implementation for rural agricultures and urban solid and sanitation wastewater. Each waste management project serves as an ideal opportunity to develop local community skills, to boost Education and Training everywhere. Leverage multiple benefits from jobs (prioritised for local community) created during projects implementation, construction and operation phases and production of valuable products to further economic activities and closing the loop of sustainable development, GDP growth & development of appropriate sciences and technologies. From small and medium sized manufacturing enterprises for machinery, equipment & technology applications, etc. the process enable women and youths in urban and rural areas, peasants and low income workers to gradually master the skills in management, production, economics, science and technology. The projects also provide the market with organic and recycled material products useful for domestic needs and exports. This brings the end to poverty, and closing the social and economics gaps.

Giving food and work may not end poverty. I think, Poverty is because of 0. Lack of will and right initiatives from the Upstream Govt./political participation - path of sin and false to prosperity 1.Lack of access to resources 2.Improper ValueS - Incorrect basic beliefs of right and wrong 3.Definitely lack of Education/Knowledge 4.Lack of Maintenance 5.Downstream Public, say for instance India, they would want to be low, and bad - because they feel safe secure and guaranteed roti,chawal 6.Every country has a different frequency to tune in to make some improvements, a few of them which worked well in some country may not work in every other country - Lack of customisation of growth strategy 7.Lack of Good approach to life.

Dear President Kim Thank You for having the heart and understanding to LISTEN and UNDERSTAND the problems we face today in our society. This would be my first time to reach out (in the internet) and share my ideas how to address problems such as poverty and certain social issues of similar concern. Your online Video has prompted me to write on this blog and i hope it reaches you! Personally in my opinion, you can (almost) try every solution that can be presented, but if the current system of (any) government or institution is still in place and in control of its people, you can spend a lifetime changing the world over and over again, and it will still go back to where it was because the system still exists where the powerful and influential can still manipulate the system. (Being rich and influential is not bad, it just happens that many ABUSE their powers and influence) If you are looking for innovative solutions then you need a new system that works. If you want greater prosperity for all people then you have to TEACH them for free and then get them involved in a system that provides equal opportunity and benefits (regardless of race, gender, educational attainment, nationality etc.) to improve their lives. Such a system does exist. And i wish i could share it with President Kim one day because if his mission is really to eradicate poverty, then i guess its worth posting this. I am a Professional Nurse and a Social Entrepreneur in a third world country where poverty is evident. The dedication of me and my friends to improve the lives of our less fortunate brothers and sisters has led us to Entrepreneurship because we have seen and are in the front lines of taking care of those in need. -rich or poor (mostly poor people). The awful truth: ... IF YOU ARE POOR or don't have enough money! You will rarely get access to QUALITY health care. The current system limits the actions of those who want to take care of you. The reason: you have no money to pay for the medical care Result: a lot of people die (sometimes slowly) THINK CANCER. Where is the value of life in that? Solution: We took the initiative to Educate People for Free on how to maintain a healthy lifestyle and engage in an income generating business that requires only the strive to be successful. No college diplomas, no government support, no red tape etc. Just plain Ordinary People who want to be Successful and give Value to life. And we have been very very successful.. :) I guess my message to be simple is: i have the a potential solution to your concerns about: Malnutrition, Job Creation, Preventive Health, Education, Better Future for our children stuff like that! *i dont not sure how this post works but i hope i shared something of value!* :)

Unfortunately, poverty will probably never be completely ended--only alleviated somewhat. What THAT will take is many more people like Bill Gates & his wife, who have committed a certain percentage of their income to help the less fortunate in many ways, whatever those ways are, and the ways needed are legion. My particular desire is to help the homeless, if only because I am one who must sleep in my car that is almost 10 years old and, I think, beginning to fall apart. I live in Laurel, Maryland and, whether anyone wants to believe it or not, there are many of us here. The primary local agency that CLAIMS to help the homeless has told more than one of us they don't "because we don't own any shelters". Many others are what I call 'geographically bigotted' with their general aid. This must end, for poverty and homelessness to begin to fade.

Dear President Kim I appreciate the opportunity to provide comments related to your article. I feel that we have many issues facing us globally and effort needs to be very focussed in a number of areas. There are many messages that we have now about how we are placed currently and where things are trending. This covers poverty, environmental, resources, to name a few. In the work that I do through Leadership Coaching, I bring about change in others and I have been doing that for many years. What I do notice is that change lasts and that it spreads around that inidividual/team, much like a "ripple effect" flowing through organisations, communities and society. As I am very passionate about "making a difference" in more recent times I have been exploring opportunities to gather the efforts globally to create change. I put together a video for Richard Branson who ran a Pitch TV initiative, I have been involved in the Richard Branson Carbon War Room project on climate change and also involved with Dick Smith on sustainability. I am also connected with a global coaching group and have intiated this approach. I believe the time is right now to work with key people, aggregate efforts and bring about change. My approach is to select key leaders in important areas relevant to the world, then support them in facilitating change. I would appreciate your feedback on this approach and also your support Regards, Geoff Leadership Coach "Global Transformation through Leadership Performance"

We can end world poverty. This is how we bend the arc. We can channel the huge budget allocations for health and education through the global sovereign debt market to raise additional funds without disrupting the flow of funds to the sector. This can be done by banks who at the beggining of a governments financial year will mobilze the sector budget equivalent, invest it in sovereign debt yet make available the monthly equivalent for recurrent expenditure. Government will then collect taxes and reimburse the bank in effect creating an investment in perpetuity capped by the sector budgets.This will free host governments to focus on recurrent expenditure while the revenues raised from the debt market can fund development expenditure i.e infrastructure, school and medical equipment, supply of drugs. In the process all households will access quality education and health services free of charge while suppliers of these goods services will be paid at market rates. This small idea can therefore make a big difference. The ability of the bank(s) to generate revenues at a small fee for schools and hospitals independent of the budget and without charging poor households means these institutions that traditionally have been viewed as constituting cost sectors, now have an alternative and sustainable revenue source. This should be a game-changer in development terms. By identifying alternative financing options for education and health without compromising quality, we solve a problem that has confronted the education and health sectors for a long time especially in developing countries. We will have reconfigured global sovereign debt to serve social causes on a sustainable basis benefiting not just Wall Street but World Street.

Dear President Kim, Great question and the solution is probably simpler than we think. Not that it's not complex...but definitely not extremely complicated with the right efforts. Over the past few years, we have been working closely on real innovative financing outside of taxes. Taxes are easy to apply but rarely solve the real problem other than throwing more money at the same old ways of doing things. Outside of taxes there has been an increasing amount of people, organizations, and corporations that have decided to participate in development or 'aid' delivery. Private Development Assistance generates more than $58 billion annually as well as $3.6 billion in volunteer (professional) time [very conservative estimates]. While this comes as good news to communities that are receiving the human and financial investment; effectiveness, duplication, and sustainability is at risk. We have met with staff at WB who are currently investing in mapping the investment of the 27 major donors. Geo-Mapping came like the solution to transparency and effectiveness but for a host country's perspective you now need a map to understand how all these map make sense.How relevant is the information after you enter it since the most project have an "end date" and it doesn't really measure the effectiveness of the human and financial investment... other than dot the maps. We are working on a project to map and measure PDA, individuals, small foundation, CSR, local initiatives in one country but we are engaging many other countries to come on board. This mapping will be done in the context of national strategies and ODA. We have had little success, to date, to engage WB so that we could work from a common platform. On a host country's perspective having a multitude of small actions without having any sense of their added value can also take away valuable resources from the public system. Met with a Vice Minister of Finance in a developing country who was explaining that they just found out they owned a hospital. A project from private sources that eventually ran out of steam. Now the community needs doctors, medicine, equipment ...and so on Just a few days ago I had a conversation with a Vie Minister of Social Planning and she explained that what her country needs is kitchen in schools so that children could be better fed and receive meals that are nutritive....but building kitchens is not the "flavor of the month/year for donors. Increasingly countries like the USA, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia, Korea (to name a few) are asking their citizens, corporations, diaspora community, foundations to participate in development....but strangely enough that doesn't come with any tools to make the human and financial more effective or strategic. We have the right technology and there is sufficient human capacities to address poverty in a holistic ways.....beyond charity. As I am writing this message to you, I am receiving the DEVEX newswires about the World Bank wanting to become a Solution Bank! Hopefully, as we progress with our ambitious work, we will be able to find the right person at the World Bank that will come to that table. So far we have seen little opportunity at the World Bank to want to collaborate in a meaningful way. Our work to engage the public at large continues and if you truly want to address poverty and the many global challenges in health, education, climate change, access to water and sustainable development; it will take more than a set of goals (likely not to be met by 2015). We will also continue to try to engage your staff as we progress. Luc Lapointe

According to me following steps to be taken to ruled out poverty. 1. Discipline in self, and respect others. 2. Education to each everyone in the world. 3. Corruption at all the levels should be given up. 4. There should be piece and brotherhood for each and everyone. 5. Respect each other even why person smaller in age and or poor. 6. Patients. If all adopt such things in there life, i feel poverty can move to lower level.

Knowing that 2.5 billion individuals, three quarters of the world's poor, still do not have an account in a formal financial institution, financial inclusion appears as a priority for increasing local economic growth and reducing poverty. In this International Year of Cooperatives, it is interesting to note that in the microfinance sector, cooperatives reach significantly more individuals and families than other financial institutions. Much more than a simple alternative to the traditional banking model, financial cooperatives make an essential contribution to social development and improved living conditions in communities. They also wield significant economic power in our globalized economy, in particular as employers. This is why Développement international Desjardins (www.did.qc.ca) and its partners, community finance institutions that are members of the international Proxfin network (www.proxfin.org), base their action on cooperative values and principles such as governance based on transparency and representation of member and client interests, local ownership, deep-rooted community involvement and inter-cooperation.

Anticorruption...Infrastructure developments, Roads, Electrcity and clean water the most and education and others subseqently ...will generate/create jobs/employment, farm to market value....Strong Policy on Env. safeguards, women empowerment, gender equalities,.....this atleast for Country I belong but I can not do/tranfer my knowledge sitting/toasting here my prior involvement....Good Luck !!

I think if we are to make transformative changes to the poverty reality we need to address the systems. This might mean that we need to look at looking at new/alternative models of development and economics. 1. Everything starts in our minds .. so does poverty. They say that poverty is something human created, so its our own thoughts and therefore our actions that contribute to the continued challenge of poverty. Unless we are able to really be conscious of implications our thoughts and action have towards continuing poverty in the world we will be able to make a significant change. We need to be more conscious and aware ! 2. Ending Greed The other side of the coin when it comes to poverty is GREED. Has humans we've become very greedy to live certain lifestyles. These are well beyond our basic needs, our greed prevents us from sharing of what we have with those who do not have even their basic needs met. Can we end poverty without addressing greed? 3. Redefining 'development' and system-wide changes When you look at the fact that we have limited resources and a growing population there is a strong need shown for sustainable lifestyles. The old 'western led development ( what is conceived to be 'developed' ) has failed us. Though there are pockets of sustainable communities we need to take the learning experiments to make systematic changes to how we operate our world. We have created financial markets that serve the rich to be richer and some of these complex system are now failing leaving many people in poverty. Are we really ready to change this reality or are we happy of the benefits we have from the status quo? 3. Ethics and Responsibility I think we need to understanding eradication of poverty is not something optional it is a basic ethical obligation each of us and therfore all the institutions we have created have. I think #what will it take is a paradigm change where we take in to account key principles as the above and open ourselves up for big changes.

Why is it that we here in many countries have mega size fries, cheeseburgers and such. We waste so much of our food and food resources. We throw out and waste so much t's unbelievable .Why not work towards distrubution resources and get the people the food and basic needs they need and deserve.

It's troubling when I think of going to a fast food restaurant and they ask do you want maximize your meal by another .50 cents or something like that--I would rather send that .50 to someone who needs it. We waste and throw out so much and many children go to bed hungry with nothing. It's a crime !! We need to work first towards distribution and maybe instead of people maximizing their fries etc and many don;t need to do this money can be pledged to help these poor people. I would be willing. How about it fast food chains ? End two issues at once Save the poor and hungry and save us and our childred from obesity.

Do nothing, let God have a shot a it...

Since money is a ... creation, just create an account for everyone, yes everyone on this planet (to prevent jealousy, you know la condition humaine LOL) and put some money on it ! That's what Einstein would have done for sure ! The men on this planet really need a paradigmaswitch, a solution so easy and yet those educated men can't see it ! LOL Easypeasy !

I thing most of the solutions give in this block ar not pratical

Personally I feel it all comes down to Education, poverty can be eliminated through providing the tools and resources for one to work with in order to generate food and fresh water. Yes it would be excellent if there was a small global tax pool, this would allow a start in further developments of fresh water wells, crop fields to be developed with the people then working on then, markets could then be established as a way to exchange and sell fresh fruit and vegetables. Again I feel people in third world countries truly want and desire and opportunity for a better life and they will work for it if the basic and absolute necessary tools are provided. What we call human nature is in fact human habit, they know no other way unfortunately and have no resources or tools to make change.. Short courses could also be implemented in horticulture once wells and crop fields are developed.. It's a start ;)

This is my personal opinion: Homeless shelters are good for helping people but not everyone can live there. That's why instead of looking to help mostly the homeless shelters, why don't we focus on trying to help the homeless people personally. I know many people donate money to homeless shelters but, why not give the homeless person the money face to face? If you're one of those people who think they will spend it on drugs then why not buy food and warm clothes for them. There is no reason why you cant help them. Even a sandwich can brighten there day, so why not give them a little bit sunshine?