Focus US Aid on the poorest of the poor

I read an editorial recently that was entitled: "Focus US aid on the poorest." I thought it was a great editorial, written by Dr. Larry Donohue who is a retired physician in the Seattle area.

The statistics about the poor continue to be startling, if we let them.

More than 25,000 children die, every day, because clean water, adequate nutrition and basic immunizations alude them.

72 million children, primarily girls, do not attend school.

The world's richest 20% nations consume 76.6% of the world's resources.

880,000 million people live on less than one dollar per day, and 3.14 billion live on less than our Starbucks coffee per day.

There is hope, however.

The microloans are an amazing road away from poverty. Women who are trusted with loans in average of $75 are developing businesses that prosper and allow them to hire others who go on to prosper. The default rate is less than 2%, making these microloans a very good investment: especially for the Kingdom of God!

In 2007, 106 million of the world's poorest families received a microloan.

Dr. Donahue's ideas are these:
Focus our foreign aid on "reducing poverty" rather than just giving handouts.
Focus on the poorest of the poor
Set targets to achieve bold and measurable outcomes for the microfunding
Monitor progress to ensure we achieve the results.

How can we get involved?
He states that "the price and promise of our citizenship is to get involved. Write our senators and representatives and let them know your sense of urgency for this because now that the world is so globally connected, these poor and forgotten are truly our neighbors, and we are called to "go out of our way, like the Good Samaritan, to help them."