The end of extreme poverty | Alex Thier | TEDxFoggyBottom

For millennia, most human lives have been spent enduring extreme poverty, without enough food, medicine, education, freedom to live a decent life. If you were born on Earth in 1980 you had a 50/50 chance of living in destitution. But here's the amazing news: after decades of unprecedented progress, we can actually eradicate extreme poverty by 2030. USAID's Policy Chief, Alex Thier, explains how it can happen, and how you can help solve humanity's greatest challenge.

Alex Thier leads policy development, strategic planning, learning and evaluation at the U.S. Agency for International Development – the lead development agency for the US government and the world’s largest bi-lateral donor. Prior to that, Alex was responsible for USAID’s multi-billion dollar investment portfolio in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Alex has previously held leadership positions at the U.S. Institute of Peace and the Genocide Prevention Task Force, and directed the Project on Failed States at Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development, and Rule of Law. He spent years in the field as a humanitarian, community development organizer, and legal advisor for the United Nations, Oxfam, and the International Crisis Group, among others. After the fall of the Taliban, he worked on the process of making a new constitution and reestablishing Afghanistan’s judicial system.

[markwgillespie]

Bravo! So inspiring! Truly appreciate all your hard efforts Mr. Thier.

[julias.]

Very inspiring! Thanks a lot for what you are doing!

[jyde]

the graph he showed around 4:50 is wrong, he refused to show the economic growth Congo has since 2000.

[ronniewang]

Great talk showing ways to help those live in poverty to improve their life quality. they have done amazing job.

[mara_exploretheworld]

My respect to your work. Totally inspiring

[jackjackson]

There are no silver bullets...It is a combination of pragmatic measures that lead to tangible improvements ! Alex Thier talk is "sugar coated" it disregards plenty of underlying issues...Things never were that simple !

[egorka]

It's obscene to refere to south-korea as "one example of successful development", suggesting "likeness" between it and the kongo, all the while omitting the funds, paid by the united states of america in a marshall-plan-like programm to create a posterchild of capitalist development, bordering a communist country. This guy is totally wrong, he assumes that development is something intrinsic and can be promoted by the right kind of policy. If a country is just liberal enough and friendly enough to big business, then development will follow. The reality is much more complicated. Also powerty can be "reduced" or "increased" just by changing the definition of what it means to be poor.

[Eldorado]

Some parts I liked, some parts seemed too optimistic, but one part really dumbfounded me, if I understood it correctly.

Did I get this right, that instead of teaching people that the "good luck dung" is killing their babies, they give them a "cure" that makes them feel even happier about using their - excuse me, but there is no other way to call it - uncivilised and ultimately stupid ritual?
What about FGM, that must contribute a lot to child mortality as well, not even mentioning the way it ruins huge number of lives forever. Should we just give them better scalpels and antiseptic creams...?

I am not pretending to be the smartest person in the world, but from everything I have ever seen or heard about this problem - I think there actually is a silver bullet. It's called education. Education - which must also cover eradication of all superstition, like in the two cases above - is the key; or rather the lack of it is the main source of misery. Of course, there are others - but those are usually local. Lack of education seems to me as the common problem of all poor areas in the world.
And it's a closed circle - education will bring you many new opportunities, but you need money to get it. Being poor prevents you from getting education, thus closing a very solid road out of poverty. That's where we should invest most of our resources spared to help poor countries - at least in my opinion. Huge companies sure could supply people with jobs - but they are in the best position to abuse those people as cheap labor while looking like saviours. It has happened, it happens and it will happen.
They need the kind of support that will make them stand on their own feet, no matter what western corporations will plan to do with them. Which is, again, education.

Or is there a place where education level grew while life quality declined? Like I said, don't take this as an arrogant comment please. Feel free to tell me where my logic goes completely wrong.

[mayainverse]

1% of the population has created 99% of the worlds wealth.

its the 1% that made it possible for a guy like me who works 30 hours a week on a low wage job to have a roof over my head and only taking 2-3 days to pay for an entire months worth of food. and access to technology and heating.

[mayainverse]

fails to address the issue of how the rich countries dug themselves out of 100, 000 years of human poverty. as if their wealth and technology and economy has always existed.

and that somehow it is the duty of the rich countries to help the poor countrys get out of it instead of being simply leading by example and allowing them to follow.

[sampleowner]

Most poverty is the result of cultures that are backward or have belief systems that impede prosperity.

[bicyclist]

Some of what he said is right and some of what he said is wrong. Countries don't always get themselves out of poverty by planning and investment. Capitalist investment is what makes the difference. Thanks.

[AstronautHenryMacHenry]

MISS U ALL THERE IN NASA GOV.T AND ALL THE KNEELS AND LOVES, TOO! -ASTRONAUT HENRY MAC HENRY: FIRST MAN TO BE IN THE KEPLER WORLDS(PARTNER: ASTRONAUT ABIGAIL HARRISON: FIRST WOMAN TO BE IN MARS(STAR: SUN).)