Do citizens have any real power to reduce global poverty?

Only 8-11% of American, British, French and German people think that they can "make a difference" in reducing poverty in developing countries through their individual actions. Evidently citizens in these countries clearly think that, as individuals, they cannot make much difference to the lives of the poor elsewhere.

This lack of belief to influence a ’far-away’ problem (in developing countries), seen as a difficult issue (extreme poverty and the many different causes) does not offer much in the way of encouragement for people to get involved.

Between 51% (German and French people) and 62% of British people say they do not think that they can make any difference to global poverty through their own individual actions.

In general, these answers show a rather fatalistic vision of whether individual citizens can really get involved in international solidarity work - and have an impact.

Ces données sont issues de notre sondage réalisé par l’Institut YouGov et piloté par l’équipe de recherche du University College London et de l’Université de Birmingham dans le cadre du projet Aid Attitudes Tracker qui mesure l’évolution des opinions et comportements sur les enjeux de solidarité internationale dans quatre pays.

Further reading

Retrouvez la méthodologie du projet Aid Attitudes Tracker

Documents to download

Retrouvez la méthodologie du projet Aid Attitudes Tracker