The key here is the question of what evidence implies what.
One sentence you wrote is: “To understand how to help the poor, we must first understand why they are poor, and maybe more importantly, why they stay poor.”
I basically answered by saying that the Millenium goals show that the poor don’t stay poor. You answered that this effect is strongly dominated by China. I responded by pointing on the largest African country and pointing to it’s success in poverty reduction and linked to statistics for all African countries showing that Nigeria is not untypical here.
You then said, well Nigeria is still “poor” by another metric. I grant that poverty in Nigeria isn’t completely eliminated. I then asked, okay, what about whether they made progress by the metric you care about?
If the answer is that they made some progress but there’s still a long way to go, you can argue that it’s not a full solution. That’s however a very different claim from it not being helpful.
Given that there’s no regression back to the levels of thirty years ago, the changes seem to be sustainable. They also seem big enough to be meaningful.
The key here is the question of what evidence implies what.
One sentence you wrote is: “To understand how to help the poor, we must first understand why they are poor, and maybe more importantly, why they stay poor.”
I basically answered by saying that the Millenium goals show that the poor don’t stay poor. You answered that this effect is strongly dominated by China. I responded by pointing on the largest African country and pointing to it’s success in poverty reduction and linked to statistics for all African countries showing that Nigeria is not untypical here.
You then said, well Nigeria is still “poor” by another metric. I grant that poverty in Nigeria isn’t completely eliminated. I then asked, okay, what about whether they made progress by the metric you care about?
If the answer is that they made some progress but there’s still a long way to go, you can argue that it’s not a full solution. That’s however a very different claim from it not being helpful.
Given that there’s no regression back to the levels of thirty years ago, the changes seem to be sustainable. They also seem big enough to be meaningful.