It’s friday, the last day of living below the line. We’re upping the ante a little this evening by having a couple of friends over and attempting to dine below the line. I’m still trying to work out if I can cook three courses for 33p per person. Maybe two is enough. In the meantime, […]
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LBTL day 4 – growing your own
As part of Live Below the Line, you’re allowed to use food you’ve grown yourself, as long as you factor in the cost of production into your £1 a day food budget. So we’ve been drawing from the garden a bit. It’s unfortunate timing really, because in Britain this is about the worst time for […]
Live Below the Line – interview
There are 23 different charities participating in the fundraising side of Live Below the Line. I’m donating to the Global Poverty Project, who run the challenge and just happen to work out of the same office as me in London. I popped upstairs to talk to the UK campaign manager for Live Below the Line, […]
LBTL day 2 – Understanding Purchasing Power Parity
When I talk about extreme poverty with friends, one of the most common responses is an excuse: in poorer countries, things are cheaper and money goes further. I’ve heard it a couple of times now in reaction to the Live Below the Line challenge. A lot of people seem to assume that living on £1 […]
Live below the line – day one
I don’t intend to post one of these every day, but here’s a snapshot of how we’ve got on today. It’s our first day attempting to feed ourselves for £1, and it’s been fine so far.
Why we’re living below the line this week
This week, my wife and I will be feeding ourselves on £1 a day as part of the Live Below the Line challenge. 1.4 billion people live in extreme poverty, as defined by the World Bank at $1.25 a day. That’s for everything, including housing, education, healthcare, the lot. If 1.4 billion people can do […]
Could you feed yourself on £1 a day?
Last year I mentioned Live Below the Line, a challenge to live on £1 a day for five days. It’s a way of raising awareness about poverty and development, and raising funds for charity. I was hoping to take part, but the week of the challenge was the same week that our son was born. […]
Poor Economics, by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo
It would be easy to yawn at yet another book about poverty written by Western economists, but this one’s a little different. Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo start with the poor, attempting to understand their lives and their decisions. The result is a book about “the very rich economics that emerges from understanding the economic […]
Write to your MEP about mining transparency
A few weeks ago I wrote about Tearfund’s Unearth the Truth campaign, which calls for transparency in the extractive industries in developing countries. Unless mining companies are forced to disclose how much they pay for mining rights, people have no way to keep the government accountable. Revenues from mining or drilling can vanish, and local […]
The Poor People’s Energy Outlook
Future global energy demand is a much-studied topic. The International Energy Agency can map demand into the next century and attempt to say how that demand will be met. But amongst the wrangling over fossil fuels vs nuclear vs renewable energy, one facet of global demand gets missed out: energy poverty. A third of the […]
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