POVERTY: Talk is expensive

This issue makes me uncomfortable within myself, takes me off my high moral perch when I talk (or lecture) to others about poverty, and it is an issue for which I do not have an answer. It is quite simply this—those of us, including me, who analyze poverty and discourse about poverty, seem to do rather well out of it. Working on poverty issues, whether in international agencies, in bilateral donor ministries, in academia, in think tanks, in foundations, or in many NGOs, has become a well defined career path, with ladders that one climbs and financial compensation to match. To be sure, the monetary compensation may not come close to that of the Wall Street Set or the Dalal Street Set. But the Development Set does fine, thank you very much.

The Development Set is bright and noble
Our thoughts are deep, our vision global;
Although we move with the better classes
Our thoughts are always with the masses.

It is extraordinary how Coggins’ satirical poem resonates more than three decades later, and now surfaces frequently in the development blogosphere. Thus in the December 4, 2008 entry on his blog, Owen Abroad: Thoughts from Owen in Africa (http://www.owen.org/blog/116 ), Owen Barder invoked the poem when he wrote:
"I’m just back from the Doha Financing for Development Conference…..One topic that occupied the negotiators for hours was whether the UN, or another body such as the G-20, should host the next meeting about the financial crisis. ("Thus guaranteeing continued good eating / By showing the need for another meeting.") I estimated that the Financing for Development meeting cost about $60 million….I have made myself a personal promise. I do not want to travel around the world telling poor countries what they should do and how they should change. I will concentrate on trying to persuade rich countries to change the policies and behaviours that make it difficult for the world’s poor to share that prosperity."
http://www.kanbur.aem.cornell.edu/papers/ChambersFestschrift.pdf