There's no app for global poverty

Every so often, the smart minds of the tech world come up with an innovation that looks capable of doing serious good in the Third World: a merry-go-round that pumps fresh water, for example, or a soccer ball that captures the energy of kids who play with it to generate electricity. But then it turns out that the soccer ball performs less well than a cheap solar lamp, and that the merry-go-round pump requires more playing than there are hours in the day.

Professionals in the fields of development and international aid are pursuing programs that could reduce extreme global poverty to nearly zero by the year 2030. But even that goal is not as straightforward as it sounds, given that the poverty line for a person in the developing world is $1.25 a day. In the United States, the poverty line for a family of four is calculated at $63 a day.

Says an article in the Economist:

If developing countries maintain the impressive growth they have managed since 2000; if the poorest countries are not left behind by faster-growing middle-income ones; and if inequality does not widen so that the rich lap up all the cream of growth--then developing countries would cut extreme poverty from 16% of their populations now to 3% by 2030. That would reduce the absolute numbers by 1 billion. If growth is a little faster and income more equal, extreme poverty could fall to just 1.5%--as near to zero as is realistically possible.

We speak with a pair of development experts about what works in the fight against global poverty.

LEARN MORE ABOUT FIGHTING GLOBAL POVERTY:

• These three charts show how the world could end extreme poverty by 2030
"World Bank President Jim Yong Kim has said the world can end extreme poverty in 17 years. But do the numbers add up?" (Wonkblog, Washington Post)

• Ending global poverty: the fight goes on
There is no one thing that can end poverty. And certainly no one thing that is within the capacity of you, or us, or any particular person or institution. The fight against poverty is not a crusade, with a well-identified and specific enemy, be it unbridled capitalism, rogue governments, over-regulation, hunger or malaria. All of these probably have something to do with the persistence of poverty. But none are easy to fix and, more importantly, even if they were fixed, poverty would still be with us. Fighting poverty is to fight, with patience and deliberateness, the many problems that make the lives of poor people difficult: bad schools, dirty water, infectious diseases, the vagaries of weather and other natural disasters, poor sanitation, lack of skills, petty corruption, potholes, etc. The list goes on. (The Guardian)

• Why Silicon Valley can't end world poverty
While it's true that some Silicon Valley entrepreneurs have been very vocal about their desire to change or save the world, their intentions aren't always matched by savvy investments. It may have something to do with the ethos of failure in the tech community, something that doesn't translate to developing nations where "the cost [of failure] is lost lives it's not just someone with a less cool fitness app." (Marketplace Tech)

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