# Should Rich Nations Help the Poor?

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/books/rich-nations-help-poor/
- Published: 2016-05-23T11:17:34+01:00
- Author: Howard Lake

**In this short book, leading global poverty analyst David Hulme explains why helping
the world’s neediest communities is both the right and the wise thing to do. The
real question is how best to provide this help.**

In the past decade, the developed world has spent almost US$ 2 trillion on foreign
aid for poorer countries. Yet 1.2 billion people still live in extreme poverty and
around 2.9 billion cannot meet their basic human needs.

But should rich nations continue to help the poor? In this short book, leading global
poverty analyst David Hulme explains why helping the world’s neediest communities
is both the right thing to do and the wise thing to do if rich nations want to take
care of their own citizens’ future welfare.

The real question is how best to provide this help. The way forward, Hulme argues,
is not conventional foreign aid but trade, finance and environmental policy reform.
But this must happen alongside a change in international social norms so that we
all recognise the collective benefits of a poverty-free world.

## About David Hulme

**David Hulme** is Professor of Development Studies at The University of Manchester
where he is Director of the Brooks World Poverty Institute and CEO of the Effective
States and Inclusive Development Research Centre

## Reviews

“David Hulme’s is a passionate and personal yet professional plea for attacking 
poverty rather than trying to stop bodies washing ashore in the Mediterranean. We
can still argue about definitions of poverty and the value of charity, but it is
no longer possible in our interconnected planet to deny the self-interests of the
wealthy West in addressing pandemics, narco-trafficking, climate deterioration, 
and terrorism. Read why things have to change.”
**Thomas G. Weiss**, The Graduate
Center, CUNY