Bertrand G. Ramcharan Quotes

If you look internationally over the last 50 years there have been improvements in the third world, but in the last 20 years the reverse has happened, with debt crises and increased poverty.

All over the globe the U.S. is fighting to protect and develop at least a minority who consume what the U.S. majority can afford.

We have got to put a human face on the global economy.

… only today, or yesterday at the earliest, after the long millenniums of man's life on this planet, has he acquired the technical skill, the command over the forces of nature, the physical power to produce enough and more for all his children upon the face of the earth.

[Developing country] sweatshops, where the conditions are admittedly appalling by Western standards, represent an improvement -- often a significant improvement -- over the alternatives available to their workers. To boycott them or impose other significant additional costs on them makes life worse for many poor people by depriving them of relatively good jobs. This is especially true for women in the developing world, for whom rural life is often far worse than industrial labor in cities.

I have always said that I want Malawi to attain growth that should not just be seen in GDP, but in the growth of opportunities for all, protection for all, and equality for all.

In the new century, we should continue to work together to safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of the vast number of developing countries including China and India and promote the establishment of a just and equitable new international political and economic order.

An economic policy which does not consider the well-being of all will not serve the purposes of peace and the growth of well-being among the people of all nations.

Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries

The problems of the Third World—its poverty, its ignorance, its debt—never really seemed to affect Europeans and Americans. No longer. It's a little warmer than it used to be. The water is rising.

That's what we were doing for the last twenty years, telling everybody to adopt a raw capitalism with no safety nets, no redistributive mechanisms…. I think we have to find ways to spread the benefits of global markets beyond just the small group of market-dominant minorities and foreign investors. We need to find ways to redistribute the wealth, whether it's property title and giving poor people property, land reform.... Redistributive mechanisms are tough to have if you have so much corruption.

Just a fraction of what is expended so obscenely on defense budgets would make the difference in enabling God’s children to fill their stomachs, be educated, and be given a chance to lead fulfilled and happy lives.

Except for a few oil-rich countries, no developing country has successfully modernized without slowing population growth.

The primary task of developing countries is to develop the economy and eradicate poverty. Without economic growth, there would be no material basis for a better life or better environment for the people. But economic growth must not be achieved at the cost of environment or resources. In the absence of proper resource and environmental protection, there could be no sustainable economic development.

There is no single sustainable model for national success. … the American model, which has indeed been successful, is not available to others, because our success depends greatly on our dominant position at the center of the global capitalist system, and we are not willing to yield it.

This age of globalization is marked by the adoption of universal principles governing such matters as democracy, human rights, trade and development.

… the world economy will only develop if it allows a dignified way of life for all human beings, from the eldest to the unborn child, not just for citizens of the G20 member states but for every inhabitant of the earth, even those in extreme social situations or in the remotest places.

No country now in transition will be able to accommodate demands for either economic security or social justice anytime soon.

… authors generally neglect that growth has lifted billions of people out of grinding poverty and that others may remain poor because of the developed world’s environmental concerns …

Globalization and technical change are the guarantee of our future prosperity. And reversing on that will not only make things worse, but it will make things worse for a very large number of people around the world who have benefitted - people in China and India who have been dragged out of the most awful poverty.

Ending extreme poverty is possible.

What we ask of the developed countries is to let the Third World find a third way.

Diamonds are a key component in the campaign to make poverty history.

Between 2001 and 2011, Brazil lifted 20 million people out of poverty and into its growing middle class, and in the last quarter of the twentieth century Botswana's gross domestic product per capita grew faster than that of any other country on the planet. The once-labeled 'Third World' is edging its way into the 'First World.'

Developing nations want to become developed nations.