Why Poverty still exists

I love Mahatma Gandhi's statement, "Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed."

And, this in a way hints at why poverty still exists in the world. Year after year, G8 and other rich industrial nations meet to discuss on this issue, make commitments to give away at least 0.1% of their GDP to developing nations. And yet, poverty seems never to abate. Some nations such as India, China and Brazil have made some progress and pulled out people from under the poverty line of $1 per day. Yet, more slip under the line in other nations, visibly more so in the nations of Africa. There are many nations which have had negative average growth rate in the last 50 years.

Millions are pledged and given away in aid by philantrophists too. Gates Foundation and another prominent philantrophist Bono of U2 have donated millions to these needy nations and people. So, where does the answer lie? Will the cows in Europe continue to be subsidized at 2 dollars daily while more than half of the world's population lives on less than 2 dollars daily? What do you call fairness?

Where does the solution lie? Is foreign aid ever going to help these nations come out free from this entangled web of poverty? I have my doubts. Instead, a new hope has been instilled in me after I came to know about the works of Muhamud Yunus of Bangladesh who started the idea of microfinancing through Grameen Bank. His organization, Grameen Bank today has several other sister organizations. And, it has made a significant difference in tens of thousands of Bangladeshi lives. He likes to call his style of business as 'social business'. This new term, 'Social Business' was alien to me before I came across his ideas, but not after that. I have started to believe the key to poverty eradication lies in social business. Foreign dependence in current form has not been able to alleviate poverty on a meaningul scale, let alone eradicate altogether.

I suggest you google the term 'Social Business' to know more about this term.

Wikipedia defines it as, "A social business is one which aims to be financially self-sufficient, if not profitable, in its pursuit of a social, ethical or environmental goal."