Global Priorities

The recently released U.N. Conference on Trade and Development Report is worthy of note.  (See Zenit's coverage of the report here.)  While it is true that progress has been made (e.g., life expectancy in developing countries has increased by two years), it remains that the level of poverty and number of deaths due to lack of basic necessities is high.

As most people know the lack of access to clean water is a major problem in developing areas.  The cost to provide 2.6 billion people with access to clean water sounds large - $7 billion.  By contrast, however, $7 billion is less than Europeans spend on perfume and less than Americans spend on elective corrective surgery.

The report calls providing aid to developing countries a "moral imperitive," observing that "One-fifth of humanity live in countries where many people think nothing of spending $2 a day on a cappuccino.  Another fifth of humanity survive on less than $1 a day and live in countries where children die for want of a simple anti-mosquito net." 

The contrasts are pretty sobering.