Ways to Fight with Poverty - Essay Example

Poverty
There are many definitions of poverty. For example, as defined by the World Bank, the “quantitative definition of poverty refers to the people who live on less than 1.25 US dollars per day” (Haughton & Khandker, 2009). Furthermore, poverty also refers to the lack of basic needs such as food, clothing shelter, water, sanitation facilities, healthcare, education, and others. These are “absolute definitions of poverty” (Lister, 2004). There are other ways to define poverty by labeling the least resource holders or income earnings people in the society as poor, regardless of whether or not they have the basic resources or fall into the income group defined by the World Bank. Relative poverty increases with increasing income inequalities. For example, the recent protests of “occupy Wall Street” and “99 percent” (Lister, 2004) define themselves as poor. However, the same is a relative measure of poverty (Haughton & Khandker, 2009). The poor in America or Europe may have access to the internet, food, education, housing, and other basic facilities may they may be earning very little income in comparison with the middle and lower class of the country. However, the poor in Africa are the people that are seriously malnourished, get a chance to eat only once or twice a week, are homeless, without any shelter, clothing, and sanitation facilities. Access to education, food, and housing like the European and American poor would actually end up making them “rich” (Lister, 2004).

Sociologists describe “social categories” as groups of people who do not necessarily interact with each other but share similar and distinctive characteristics (Haughton & Khandker, 2009). The basic difference between a “social group” and a “social category” is the fact that within the former, the people interact with each other. The first social category, which is affected the most by this issue, is Africans. Most of the African countries rank the lowest in the list of countries by GDP, human development, social development, access to basic resources, and others (Haughton & Khandker, 2009). Furthermore, out of the 50 lowest ranking countries on UN least developed countries, 64 percent are in Africa. Out of every six children in Africa, one of them dies before reaching the age of five years, and diseases whose cure is well known cause most of these deaths to humankind. Unemployment ranges from 50-65 percent in most of these countries, average annual inflation peaks at over 30-40 percent, and every minute of every day, a child dies in sub-Saharan Africa due to measles whose vaccine costs as less as 1 US dollar per day. The prime reasons behind these concerning situations in Africa include lack of education, corrupt and incompetent government, lack of awareness within the public circles, lack of health facilities, prolonging wars, slavery, human trafficking, lack of resources, and others (Lüsted, 2010).

Over the years, the issue of poverty has gained more and more attention all over the world. More and more developed nations and people have come forward to address these issues and ensure that an end could be put to the suffering of people all around the world. The United States claims to have sent more than 780 billion US dollars of aid to the African countries from 1950-1990 for the resolution of this issue (Haughton & Khandker, 2009). However, this aid did not have any long-term effect because most of this came back to the United States and other European countries because their political leader used those funds for buying deadly weapons. Observations have indicated that many NGOs and international organizations in the world are trying to eradicate poverty from the world. Despite this increased attention and efforts from the international community for the eradication of poverty from the world, the gap between the rich and poor is constantly increasing. In fact, in the recent past, due to the financial crisis, this gap has increased faster than ever.

Fourth, the awareness, which comes with education, helps in educating the entire households about political, social, economic, and legal issues. Fifth, with an educated youth, these countries have better chances to find better future leaders.