Poverty related issues - Essay Example

Topic: Poverty related issues March 13, 2008 What is poverty Poverty is the of a situation and process. This is a situation when an individual, family or a community can not provide for bare minimum needs of food, clothing, shelter and heath. It is the process when this situation causes, hunger, disease, and death. Historically poverty and affluence have coexisted in the human society (Peter singer 1972). The solutions to the poverty always existed in human morality. When the human conscience is rightly jerked, it is hoped that poverty would no more be seen in the human societies. State the general occurrence of poverty in Unite States (the most affluent society) In United States of America only about 32 million people live below the line of poverty. This number is distributed unevenly amongst different socio-economic groups of the states. 25%Afro-American, 22% Hispanics, 10%Asian American, 8% non-Hispanic whites respectively live in the perpetual poverty. Income inequalities and racial discrimination is the worst producer of poverty in the American Society. The worst hit groups in the ethno-racial groups are the poor children, women and disabled. These marginalized people are vulnerable to homelessness, street crimes, malnourishment, neglect in the health care, domestic violence and discriminate educational facilities. What are the solutions of the poverty alleviation in US society Society as a whole owes a moral duty to rectify the above situation. Non-poor and affluent at their own should pay enough towards charitable organizations working for the alleviation of poverty. They have to put pressure on their elected parliamentarians to ask the state governments for enough allocation of social funds for bringing the poor out of poverty trap. US is a society of high social norms where killing someone is murder and a punishable act, but allowing someone being killed by a curable disease or undernourishment is also moral sin. In the moral conceptual scheme US citizens are bound to promote poverty alleviating charity as a good thing. In this way they are bound to prevent the human sufferings (as a bad thing) from poverty in their society. This scheme allows and asks all the citizens across all the states irrespective of their residence to participate in the charity, because poverty and charity are both indiscriminate disregarding time and space. In this process one may not think that pro rata contribution of a few dollars by him/her is the job done. One may contribute as much as he can comfortably afford. Here comfortable affordability means the amount, which can alleviate a suffering of a poor without causing a suffering for you. And one should never sit back to see what others have contributed. If all of the citizens think like that then the charity may go empty and poor may die. While drawing a thin line between charity and duty one must be very careful. A man who gives regular and enough charity should not consider himself generous. Bread left over from one's meal always belongs to the poor. Here it is never meant that a citizen is required either to give away half of his income into charity, or all that he himself does not need. The beauty of helping others lies in a feeling for those who suffer from poverty. Utilitarian point of view is very clear about this. One should work enough to have enough to give away in charity. Keeping oneself underutilize is not good. And one should never think that since government is responsible for the social spending on poor, he/she is absolved of this responsibility. Other point which may stop a person from charity is that poor are always over populated and they do not follow the population control programs. Coercive application of these programs never works. A conducive environment comes from enough purpose oriented recreational and educational programs. Poverty is also a state of mind from which a poor suffers from generation to generation. Therefore to bring him out of this mental trap needs comprehensive and time-consuming process. Describe the acute contours of poverty in Africa (the poorest region) and some solutions Africa is the second largest continent on the surface of earth with a total population of about 885 million. The specter of poverty has shown itself in its worst and fullest manifestations on the horizons of Africa (Anthony 1991). This is not a new phenomenon. This is historic in nature. The developed world has been extracting gems and jewelries, minerals and spices from almost entire region of Africa but in turn has given only guns, ignorance, deaths and disease back to the Africans. More than 70 % population in Africa lives in the rural areas. This includes the sub-Saharan region. The main livelihood of the rural Africans depends upon agriculture. More than 25 % of total African populations live under the abject conditions of absolute poverty. Majority of them cannot pay for two times square meals. They cannot send their children to schools. They cannot pay for their health needs. Their honors and lives always remain at stake. Life security becomes major problem especially in civil strives. People distrust each other. Tribes slaughter each other for small things. 11 million people in Africa are dying of hunger right now. The GDP per capita has never arisen above $180per year. This is not because the entire Africa is devoid of natural resources. Actually the Africans have seldom been allowed to decide about their fates. Their colonial masters African's domain has seldom considered natural resource management. Democracy has not been allowed to flourish in Africa. Land degradation, lack of irrigation water and absence of land reform has also been one of the looming reasons of poverty in Africa (IRIN 2005). The other reason being genuinely quoted is the decrease in the social spending on the pretext of structural adjustment programs. Official development assistance is getting persistently shrunk. NGOs, IFIs are shying away from this region. Result is the mass prevalence of HIV-Aids, deaths and shameful scenes of civil wars. In order to properly steer the African economy, a true development in farm and non-farm activities and cooperative organization of farmers is direly needed (Ellis 2000). Access to market and confident work of NGOs is needed. What are the social problems emanating from poverty Different social problems emanate from this marginalized group of American society that directly hit the American society. Poverty is badly impacting the health of women and children. The burden on health facilities and health insurance is increasing many folds in these poverty stricken communities. When the parents cannot afford the children's feeding costs. Similarly the hygiene problems are aggravating in these areas. Parents have to work harder and for longer hours to sustain their families. The families are accordingly ignored and children often drop out of schools. Resultantantly this vicious cycle continues .It is observed that these poor communities are overpopulated and the process continue. Often street crimes and terrorism come out of these poor communities. What can be done on different levels of society to solve this social problem So the poverty in the different social and economic groups of the world can be solved through the following possible comprehensive measures. Individual level: Charity contributions made under the utilitarian philosophical frame work NGO's and other charitable organizations; making pressure groups for poverty alleviation, working with policy planners, setting up trauma centers in poor localities, and meeting with direct needs of poor. State Level; pro-poor policy planning increased social security on health and education -Social safety nets, low cost housing, and secure jobs for the poor, food stamps schemes. References. Peter Singer. Famine affluence and poverty. ( 1972), Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 1, no. 1 pp. 229-243 [revised edition] Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. (1999). Low unemployment, rising wages fuel poverty decline. Washington, DC: Author. IRIN News , 2005. South Africa: Land ownership remains racially skewed Anthony Michael , 1992 African Poverty - a geographical approach ISBN 185293087X Ellis frank 2000 Rural livelihoods and diversity in developming countries oxford university press Read More