And it just keeps on coming

The at least more or less good news, that is. Over this past weekend, the International Herald Tribune for Monday reported, a deal was cut to wipe out $40 billion in debt owed by 18 of the poorest nations in the world, a "major breakthrough on a dauntingly complex issue."

It will result in only modest increases of money available to the 18 to improve the lot of their people - on the order of $1.5 billion per year - but the significance does not really lie in the amount: It lies in the fresh start those countries now have, freed from a crippling cycle of indebtedness that left them borrowing money to pay the interest on previous loans, pushing them further and further into a hole from which many had no hope of emerging.

And it shows that at long last the developed world may be getting serious about dealing with the crushing burden of world poverty, a world where half the population lives on an average of $2 a day and where the combined Gross Domestic Product of the poorest 48 nations (roughly a quarter of the total number of countries) is less than the combined wealth of the world's three richest people.

[A]dvocates hope that this victory on an issue they have put at the heart of years of hard-fought lobbying will bring fresh momentum in their broader global antipoverty campaign on the trifecta of debt relief, increased aid and reduced trade barriers.

And there is indeed more, much more, to be done. Tony Blair has announced a hope to win promises from the G8 nations at their summit next month for aid to the poor nations of the world totaling an additional $50 billion a year on top of the roughly $75 billion Western nations provide now.

"We should see this as the hors d'oeuvre, not the main course," said Kevin Watkins of the United Nations Development Program. "And the main course has to be a huge increase in aid."

(Blair's commitment - which in this case appears to be a valid description - to having the industrialized world do more for poor nations is not brand-new. In 2000 his government issued a white paper called "Eliminating World Poverty: Making Globalisation Work for the Poor," available at this link in .pdf format. Ironically, it's signed by Clare Short, Blair's secretary of state for international development, who resigned over the Iraq war.)

For its part, the US agreed to write off the debt and have the industrialized nations share in recompensing the World Bank and other lending institutions for what they would lose rather than having those nations just pay the debt down over time. Still, the White House is reluctant to agree to any increase in aid, noting that in dollar amounts, the US gives more than any other country. However, when measured as a portion of GDP, by the most recent (2004) figures, the US ranks next to last among the 22 Western industrialized nations (basically western Europe, the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) in its level of development aid, and avoided last place, its usual spot, by .01% of GDP.

In fairness to the US, it needs to be mentioned that there are other ways of measuring national aid to poor nations; some include disaster relief and others count private contributions attributable to tax policies. By some of those measures, the US ranks somewhat higher - although according to at least one study that did include the latter consideration, the US still ranked 19^th out of 21 nations.

At the same time, even by the first-cited set of standards, the other 21 countries considered haven't exactly been sterling examples on their own. At the 1992 Earth summit in Rio de Janeiro, a standard goal of 0.7% of GDP in development aid was set for developed nations. Of those 22 nations, only five - Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden - hit that target each of the last four years. In fact, those five are the only ones to reach that target any of the last four years. The US peaked at 0.16% of GDP in 2004.

Still, the hope now is that this agreement on debt relief shows that the rich nations of the world are finally realizing that promises don't fill empty bellies, don't clean polluted waters, don't teach people to read and write. Resources do that.

There are occasions - rare, but they do exist - when what is right is also what is profitable. Henry Ford made a fortune and shaped the industry of a nation by realizing it was good business to pay his workers enough so that they could afford the cars they were building. Could that be part of the dynamic here? Could the industrialized nations be realizing that it's no use to produce the sort of hi-tech goods and services in which they are coming to specialize if there aren't enough people who can afford them and make use of them?

I admit, I'd much rather that this seeming at least partial shift in attitude came as a result of realizing the moral imperative, the straightforward justice, of abolishing poverty; of insuring adequate food and water, clothing, education, and heath care as a basic human right. But I doubt that's the source. Much more likely is good, old-fashioned, enlightened self-interest. Still, I will take that and ride it as far as it will take us. Yes, it means that there will still be battles to be fought and maybe some of them will be more difficult for having been put off - but like the man in the movie said, "Small steps, small steps." As long as the steps are in the right direction.