Poor in society - Article Example

Download file to see previous pages... The above novels - because of their popularity among people internationally have helped towards the promotion of a series of measures for the reduction of poverty both by governmental and non-governmental organizations. Current paper examines the effectiveness of policies and strategies used for the reduction of poverty by states within the international community. It is proved that poverty is a problem that has been extensively addressed by all governments worldwide but the initiatives taken for its reduction have been either limited or inappropriately designed.
Poverty has been defined using many different descriptions. In accordance with a definition given by U.S. researchers, poverty is 'the state of living in a family with income below the federally defined poverty line' [1]. In accordance with a definition given by the Business Dictionary (2007) poverty trap is 'situation created by tax laws and income related social security benefits that prevents people from climbing out of welfare dependency' [2]. On the other hand, Hagenaars (1985, 137) supported that 'if poverty is seen to be a situation of absolute deprivation, a poverty line will usually be defined to be independent of the general style of living in society; if poverty is considered to be a situation of relative deprivation, a poverty line will be defined in relation to the general style of living in society'.

Many efforts have been made in order to identify the key elements of poverty as it can be observed in societies around the world. In accordance with Woolcock (2007,1) 'in recognizing that poverty is "multi-dimensional", contemporary policy discourses - drawing on scholarship on 'networks', 'exclusion', and 'culture' - have made important (if often underappreciated) steps to incorporate insights from social and political theory, but these (hardwon) gains now need to be consolidated, advanced and sharpened'. In other words poverty can be considered as having many aspects; however it is clear that it is closely related with the social and political conditions of a particular country being influenced by the choices and the policies of the governmental authorities in each specific region. However, it should be noticed that the external characteristics of poverty are common in all countries within the international community; just the causes of poverty can be differentiated in each particular state taking into account the social and cultural characteristics of each society and the response of local governments to the needs of citizens in all aspects of daily human activities - with an emphasis on the health sector.

3. Strategies for reducing poverty
The policies applied by governments around the world in order to reduce poverty tend to differentiate - under the terms explained in the previous section. As for the appropriateness of the methods used for the reduction of poverty and the range of available solutions towards this direction, many suggestions have been made based on different sociological and political criteria. In this context, it is noticed by Cho (2004, 1) that ...Download file to see next pagesRead More