Political leaders have been promising and failing to make poverty history for years. Why is this time going to be any different? Especially seeing as all that is being demanded are reforms to capitalism.

More and better aid might help some hungry people in the short term, but is unlikely to bring a decent standard of living. Dropping the debt will make things easier for the state in these African countries, but governments always act in the interest of the rich - be it by waging war or providing relief where the system fails to meet basic needs - not the majority of people. Making trade fair will provide a better deal for emerging African capitalists, so what? - it doesn't gaurantee better conditions for the emerging working classes in Africa. It takes no account of the fact that most people are poor because they don't own the means of producing life. Unless you challenge this fact, that is unless you challenge capitalism, you are hindering social progress toward a world where everyone stands in equal relation to the means of living and there is no poverty at all - let alone promising to halve poverty in twenty years time when most of the kids starving now will be having children of their own. Demanding concessions from the representatives of the rich through praying, pleading or direct action will get us nowhere. If we want a society for ourselves, we have to take power by ourselves.

The world for the workers!