The White Man s Burden By William Easterly - 1704 Words

‘The White Man’s Burden’ is a book by William Easterly. The book explain why Western relief has done more harm than good. There are high poverty levels in Africa where millions of children are dying from easily preventable diseases despite the increase in foreign aid. Gordon brown called for doubling of foreign aid which was a Marshall plan to help the world’s poor countries. According to Easterly, the West spent around $2.3 trillion on foreign aid for the past five decades and has not yet managed to get affordable medicines for children to prevent half of deaths caused by malaria. The West spent that amount and had not managed to buy cheap bed nets for poor families or give three dollars to every mother to prevent massive deaths. Easterly also argues that, despite the doubling of school fees, students from poor families do not go to schools. Easterly is concerned about how global society has developed a superior entertainment approach to rich families while it cannot afford cheap medicine to poor families. The west believes that they have made a lot of efforts to help whereby they feel that their hard work and compassion should be recognized. He also says that there is much compassion and goodwill among various people to help the poor. However, only a few people address the important issue regarding foreign aid. The big plans are to help the poor. Easterly propose that, he is not advocating for the pulling down of the aid to the poor, but the West should ensure that