Medium: Solar Fields, Sexist Poverty, and a Modern Marshall Plan
Bono, lead singer of U2 and co-founder of ONE and (RED)

“…Our ultimate goal is the end of aid — growing economies, shared prosperity, self-sufficiency. But the way we’re going to get there — if you can handle the cognitive dissonance – is actually to increase the aid, for now, to the countries that need it the most. … The Marshall Plan should be a model but it needn’t be our only inspiration. … Partnership, not paternalism, is required here – and was the key to the success of the previous edition of the Global Goals, the Millennium Development Goals. It should egg us on to consider the role the MDGs played in increasing the number of children in schools and dramatically reducing child deaths, maternal mortality, and the most degrading, debilitating sort of poverty. … [S]ometimes, when a situation demands it, we think big, act audaciously, and we get it right – or at least partly right, which is no small thing. Now needs to be one of those times…” (8/22).

Medium: Three things stick out to me about this excellent piece, Bono.
Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

In a response to Bono’s piece, Gates writes, “…The first, of course, is your usual flair, including a reference to ‘projectile vomiting.’ … The second is your argument that the global refugee crisis underscores the need for long-term investments in development … If we can help people in poor countries build thriving societies in which they are healthy and fulfilled, we can prevent many crises before they happen. … The third thing that stuck out is the pull quote about halfway down that says, ‘Poverty is sexist: it hits women and girls the hardest, which is doubly ironic, because investing in them is the best way to end poverty.’ I want to reinforce this point. It is impossible to understand poverty – both what it really is and how to fight it – without understanding the plight of women and girls around the world. … Investing in women and girls is indeed the best way to end poverty for everyone” (9/22).