Global inequity, by some measures, is diminishing. Yet it is a sobering sort of success, because sometimes it is people who live on less than one dollar per day have decreased, either that their incomes increase to, perhaps, two dollars per day, or that they are dying off.

This is the subject of a Monitor article Thursday. The story is accompanied by a photograph of a beaming child in Malawi, eating an ear of corn grown by her father, with the help of an aid program.  Corn is not native to Africa, and crops get decimated when weather is bad.  Aid, too, is subject to changes in political and economic climates.   

This past week, a United Nations report suggested ways industrialized countries could halve world poverty by 2015, with the ultimate goal of eliminating it completely by 2025. The report recommends a multi-pronged approach that includes rich nations stepping up their financial support of of nations that show development promise. The report also says poor countries should do their part to meet these goals, while wealthy nations should open their markets.  Agricultural markets especially matter to struggling, pre-industrial economies, but laws protecting European Union and United States farmers often serve to push these countries out of markets.

Market demands and new customers might bring about change faster than policy shifts, however. This past November, it was reported that the US's agricultural trade balance for the first time in 50 years would be zero.   More countries are producing wheat, produce and other commodities.  In addition, trends toward fresh and exotic products, and new demands for these products created by cultural diversity in this country, are cited as factors.

The more products that rich nations buy from poor countries, this improves the standard of living in the developing world. In turn, emergent countries often want more of what the developing world has to sell - like electronics, cars, and education.  That could be good for everyone.