Michael Matheson Miller, Acton’s Director of Media, recently made an appearance on NPO Showcase, a community access show here in the Grand Rapids area, to discuss the PovertyCure initiative. The full 15 minute interview is available for viewing below:

Read more on Video: Michael Matheson Miller on PovertyCure…

Last summer, Acton’s PovertyCure team traveled to Ghana to meet with its economists and entrepreneurs — the men and women who are helping the country develop. It just so happens that they also met briefly with Peter Cardinal Turkson, president of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Peace and Justice and co-author of the note released yesterday that has stirred up a global controversy.

Read more on ‘Central World Bank’ Would Hurt Cardinal Turkson’s Native Ghana…

Bread for the World CEO David Beckmann once said, “We can’t food-bank our way to the end of hunger.” As I said then, if “changing the politics of hunger” means that more people are getting food assistance from the government rather than food banks and community efforts, count me out.

Read more on Fighting Hunger Together…

Three days ago I arrived in Nairobi, Kenya, for Acton’s conference at Strathmore University. Driving about the city the last few days, I have been amazed by the number of small-medium businesses located in the kiosks along streets. These simple, tin/wood structures are bustling with enterprising and entrepreneurial souls working hard to better their lives and those of others.

In a Nairobi bread kiosk

With such diligent and enthusiastic people, why is Kenya such a poor country?

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The Catholic Church has long been one of the most insistent voices concerning the obligation of wealthy nations to assist less developed nations. Philip Booth, author of the new Acton monograph International Aid and Integral Human Development, looks at this tradition and finds that the Church’s endorsement of aid is highly qualified — a positive sign of increasing awareness that old methods of development assistance may not be as helpful as previously thought. Indeed, there is good evidence to believe that aid might even harm the citizens of the countries that receive it. Get Acton News & Commentary in your email inbox every Wednesday. Sign up here.

Read more on Philip Booth: Solidarity, Charity and Government Aid…

Some of the assumptions built into the mainstream international aid and development movement are puzzling. Among them is the faulty assumption that the comparison that matters most is how the developing world is doing in relation to the developed. Not surprisingly, this kind of comparison tends to make the gains in developing countries seem small, inscrutable, or nonexistent, and end up reinforcing the myth that progress is never achieved.

Read more on Walk, Pedal, Drive…

I had occasion to ask a leader in a denominational global relief agency today whether he had seen any decline in North American interest in addressing international poverty, given the recent economic downturn. He said that he had among some of the major foundations and donors, who were being inundated with more local requests for funds (food banks, and so on). But he also said that among most mid-level and smaller givers, they were matching if not exceeding previous patterns of giving.

Read more on Keeping up Giving amidst a Downturn…

When Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad makes a public claim it’s typically controversial. So the AP filed a story with this headline in the Jersualem Post, “Ahmadinejad blames West for AIDS.” Clearly the JP went for shock value, as most other outlets chose to title the story something like, “Iranian president: ‘Big powers’ going down.”

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On Friday April 11, the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, featured a front-page article on the progress made in international development since Pope Paul VI wrote the encyclical Populorum Progressio in 1967. The author of the article, Fr. Gian Paolo Salvini, S.J., is director of the journal La Civiltà Cattolica. He has a degree in economics and since he has lived in Brazil for many years, he has first-hand experience of development issues.

Read more on Absolute and Relative Poverty: The ‘Dogma’ of Economic Equality…

On today’s Diane Rehm Show, a panel of experts discussed the pending energy policy legislation in the US Congress. Karen Wayland, legislative director of the Natural Resources Defense Counsel talked about the need to join the concepts of national security and climate change when discussing energy policy (RealAudio).

Read more on National Security and Global Warming…