Devaluations Are Never Easy.

The Idea That The Un System Could Provide Real Leadership On The Great Development Challenges Will Strain Credulity In Some Quarters.

Deep Down, If We Really Accept That Their Lives - African Lives - Are Equal To Ours, We Would All Be Doing More To Put The Fire Out. Its An Uncomfortable Truth.

There's A Lot Of Strength In The U.s., But There's A Lot Of Froth Also. The Froth Will Blow Off. We're Going To Have To Face Up To Some Realities That We're Not Fully Facing Up To Right Now.

It's Not An Accident That The U.s. Ranks Lowest Of All Major Donor Countries In The World - That Is The Share Of Our Income That Goes To Development Aid. Americans Will Ask Whether, Because Were So Generous Privately, That Makes Up The Difference. But It Doesn't. We Still Rank Far Below Other Countries.

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.