Leila Janah Quotes

The Global Poverty Project's mission is to stand up for the world's poorest people. We fight for the full funding of Millennium Development Goals and advocate meaningful change to government and corporate policies that block progress and entrench injustice.

Handouts are not going to end global poverty, but work - real work - just might.

The only way to have a better world and end poverty is by closing the gap between the top and the bottom.

Dependency arguments often come from elites - either aid agencies or governments - and say something about attitudes to poor people.

The best way to end poverty is to simply give people work, which isn't considered 'sexy' among donors who want to fund a preschool or cure a disease.

The best way poor people can come out of their poverty is to get on the global highway, not on some dirt side road.

We used to wage war on poverty—not poor people.

We make the future sustainable when we invest in the poor, not when we insist on their suffering.

When I was a kid in junior high, I had an assignment to discuss how to rescue poor people in India. I remember my teacher at the time considered it an impossible problem. Now, we're not talking that way anymore. We're sure not talking about that for China. They're rescuing themselves thanks to globalization.

The social justice movement of the 21st century is economic development.

My Government has provided equitable access to benefits and facilities of its schemes for the poor people; of all religions and all regions, and has, thus, earned the trust of the people of the country.

Rather than engineering our economies solely to maximise GDP, Africa's business and political leaders must build economies explicitly designed to end poverty and inequality.

If it doesn't reach the last poor man, your constitution is wrong.

If we are serious about breaking cycles of poverty, we have to change this (economy).

Of what good is democracy if it is not for the poor?

People don't need to become more aware of poverty - they need to know how to end it.

We all have the chance to create a world where extreme poverty is the exception rather than the rule.

The rich do not have to invest enough in the poorest countries to make them rich; they need to invest enough so that these countries can get their foot on the economic ladder . . . Economic development works. It can be successful. It tends to build on itself. But it must get started.

All of the incessant debate about development assistance, and whether the rich are doing enough to help the poor, actually concerns less than 1% of rich world income. The effort required of the rich is indeed so slight that to do less is to announce brazenly to a large part of the world: 'You count for nothing.' We should not be surprised, then, if in later years the rich reap the whirlwind of that heartless response.

The way to turn our economy around is not by making rich people poorer, it's by making poor people richer.

The invention of the micro-loan was a big surprise to me. Who would have guessed loans of less than $20 made to poor people in undeveloped countries could create thriving local economies? And, even more surprisingly, that they more reliably pay off their debts than the wealthy of the world.

Eradicate poverty. This is all that matters in my country. When I am out training I think about this a lot; when I am running it is going over in my mind. As a country we cannot move forward until we eradicate poverty.

There are many commitments I have made for reducing poverty. One is to reform social security. Social security reaches only 44 percent of Mexicans. One of my goals is to give social security to all the people.

There has long been a debate in the aid community and in Africa about how to most effectively help situations of poverty in developing nations and underprivileged communities.

I founded Grameen Bank to provide loans to those considered traditionally unbankable. Grameen Bank works with the poorest and often illiterate, providing uncollateralized micro-loans for tiny business enterprises by which they can lift themselves and their families out of poverty.