Poverty has been a major issue that has plagued many of the world’s economies for many decades. Poverty refers to a state where individuals lack enough resources to cater for their everyday needs (Nolan, 2007). Poverty can come about as a result of many factors. Some of the major factors that can cause poverty include resource related factors, national disasters, unexpected calamities, and exponential population growth. Globally, there has been an increasing trend of focusing on poverty reduction trends which has resulted in the institution of different projects which aim at reducing poverty reduction. However, while there have been significant steps in the fight against poverty, it continues to be a major problem affecting most global economies. This paper focuses on discussing the causes of poverty globally, the effects of poverty on different economies and the ways of combating this poverty.
Firstly, poverty comes about as a result of different factors. While some of these factors are brought about by the actions of man, the other factors are natural and are beyond man’s control. Some of the most common natural factors causing poverty include earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, and droughts. This paper shall focus on those causes of poverty that come about as a result of the actions of man. Firstly, history is a major factor causing poverty. Globally, most of the poorest countries include those countries that were under colonial rule during their history. Other poor countries are those that have been centers of slave exportation while others have had a history of political violence. For such economies, it is difficult to recover from the historical injustices. Furthermore, such historical events lead to mining of the county’s resources resulting in fewer resources to meet the needs of their current citizens.
Secondly, those countries that currently experience conditions of war or political instability also exhibit high rates of poverty. The wars lead to widespread looting, destruction of poverty and unequal distribution of resources which highly contributes to poverty in such countries. Thirdly, the national debt is also a factor that heavily causes national poverty. In developing countries where poverty is highly prevalent, the national governments take on loans from developed countries and international organizations at high-interest rates to finance projects that aim at alleviating the poverty. Instead, the high interests charged on these loans further burden these economies leading to further spread of poverty conditions (Fosu, 2009).
Additionally, inequality within the society, as well as discrimination also, leads to poverty. In such nations, part of the county’s citizens face unequal treatment and often oppression from the other parts of the society. Subsequently, such discriminated and marginalized communities languish in poverty while the other communities within the nations prosper. A good example is the African American community that has suffered oppression in the United States for many decades while the white community achieved economic growth. Finally, poor national policies have also contributed to the spread of poverty in many developing countries. Such policies have led to widespread corruption in such nations and financial unaccountability. As a result, taxes collected from the citizens by the governments have gone to poor uses leading to a lack of finances to finance poverty alleviation programs.
Many of the vices in society come about as a result of poverty. Firstly, the poverty leads to malnutrition. The poor in society are unable to access healthy and nutritious food for their everyday needs (Theodossiou, 1998,). As a result, such poor individuals develop nutrition-related diseases such as Kwashiorkor and marasmus. In extreme cases, there have been reports of people in poor communities dying as a result of lack of food. Secondly, the poverty also leads to poor healthcare services and access to other amenities such as education. To access such social services, one requires to have money to pay for the services. Therefore, the poor communities lack such resources and often result to use of traditional practices, such as traditional medicine, to supplement the poor social amenities available to them.
Thirdly, poverty also leads to social decadence. Poverty creates an opportunity for the development of antisocial behavior within many societies. For example, the poverty leads to lower numbers of unemployment opportunities within such nations. Also, the poverty also leads to lower numbers of schools. The above conditions lead to an increased number of youths who are left idle in the society. To meet their needs and to occupy their free time, such youths engage in theft and other forms of criminal activities including vandalism (Adams, 2004).. It is, therefore, not a surprise that the developing countries record higher crime rates than the developed nations.
Many nations have put in place programs to eradicate poverty. Among these programs include setting of development goals. For example, many of the developing countries have instituted development goals to be achieved by certain dates. For example in Africa, Kenya has established the Vision 2030 which foresees that the country would achieve economic development by the year 2030 (Greer, and Erik, 1986). Other nations have established partnerships with international organizations such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to help finance their poverty eradication strategies. Furthermore, some nations have embraced changing of the existing national policies as a means through which they would eradicate poverty. For example, China is gradually changing from a policy of importing most of the resources used in its industries to use of local resources. Such a strategy aims at the creation of job opportunities for local communities thereby eradicating unemployment and poverty.
While most world nations have recognized the effects that poverty has had on their populations, the combative measures put in place to fight the social condition have not been adequate to eradicate poverty completely. The lack of complete eradication of poverty is evident as even within the developed nations, some parts of the community still languish in poverty. Poverty is the cause of many social vices. Subsequently, there is a need to put in place policies and projects that will quickly fight poverty for the current generations and also in the future.
References
Adams, R. H. (2004). “Economic growth, inequality and poverty: Estimating the growth elasticity of poverty,” World Development 32(12), 1989-2014.
Fosu, A.K. (2009), “Inequality and the Impact of Growth on Poverty: Comparative Evidence for Sub-Saharan Africa,” Journal of Development Studies, 45(5), 726-745.
Greer, J and Erik T., 1986, A Methodology for Measuring Food Poverty Applied to Kenya, Journal of Development Economics 24: 59–74
Nolan, B., (2007), A Comparative Perspective on the Development of Poverty and Exclusion in European Societies, Bonn: International Policy Analysis.
Theodossiou, I., 1998, The Effects of Low-Pay and Unemployment on Psychological Well-Being: A Logistic Regression Approach. Journal of Health Economics 17: 85-104.
