Africa is poor and 5 other myths: Simon Moss at TEDxWarwick

Poverty isn't getting worse. Food isn't running out. Volunteering overseas is not the best way to help. Simon Moss debunks six myths about poverty and asks a series of new questions to reshape the way we think about relief.


Simon is a campaigning and community education expert. He has contributed on development issues at some of the world's leading conferences including the G20, the World Economic Forum and the Clinton Global Initiative. He is the co-founder of the Global Poverty Project, an education and campaigning organisation working towards the end of extreme poverty, and wrote the ground-breaking 1.4 Billion Reasons presentation, which has been delivered 750+ times to 100,000+ people since 2009.

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)

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[PeoplePower HeartOfAfrica]

The only problem is the mr speaker, the smart guy still also refer Africa as one thing/country, there are places in Africa that dont need any aid or voluteers whatsover, its time for people to reference countries rather than continent, I never hear people refer Burma, Bangladesh, India etc.. as ASIA - Lesson 1 - Africa has 54 countries, learn their names please, you can google it by the way...

[Crawfbob]

I liked his ideas. I just wish guys like him weren't all such self-righteous, self-assured wankers.

[Meery Tooday]

The reason UK /USA seems to have enough food is cause they have fake food..GMO. Most African countries have natural food...The west needs to stop denying that their economies are tottering and fool their people that Africa needs their help..They want Africa for ulterior motives. When they have stable economies and they have proper food and no debt, then they can start trying to help others!

[Meery Tooday]

Exactly...200 years of slave labor, decades of colonization....African countries should calculate how much these western countries benefited from them and then have them pay back. UK stole so much land, America stole labour. The strongest labor force of Africa was taken to build the America and Europe etc How about Africa gets 200 years of free labour from America and Europe? I don't think they have the cash to pay for it. They are all in so much debt!

[David Martin]

Silly complaint really. It would be a waste of time to go into every single diverse case of poverty in Africa, especially in a 20 minute TED talk.

[connectedification]

if you are going to comment pay attention

1:45 Because Africa is a continent that is full of amazing people doing amazing things.

[connectedification]

if you comment it would be good if you actually listened to the conversation.... 1:31Well, Africa's actually 54 different countries.

1:35There's a huge amount of diversity.

[DegahbourCity]

more like africa is poor continent....africa is continent not a country!

[Richlyist]

Agreed.



[Bipin Shrestha]

It would be a shame for you not to shed pounds when these people are able to burn fat so easily using Fat Blast Lifestyle (go google it).

[dkoli]

General stereotype for Australians.