The Silent Disaster of World Poverty: "Yet there are grounds for hope as well.

The tsunami coincides with an attempt to put world poverty at the center of the global policy agenda for 2005. In July, Tony Blair will host a summit of the G-8 industrialized nations on reducing poverty, particularly in Africa. In September, the United Nations will hold a special summit to review progress on meeting its somewhat optimistic 'Millennium Development' goals, which include eradicating extreme poverty and hunger and introducing universal primary education by 2015.

More important, there are signs that the summiteers have learned something from their past mistakes.

After blowing billions on big infrastructure projects, the World Bank has a better sense of what reduces poverty: investing in primary education (particularly for girls), providing better access to water, eliminating malaria and so on. Technology is also helping: The number of people afflicted by polio, for example, has shrunk from 350,000 individuals 15 years ago to just 800 people today, thanks to better vaccines."