Poverty,

Around the world

Introduction:

Beggars, skinny children, jhuggis are a usual sight to us. In our daily life we come across many people who are harassed with the crisis of poverty. India is not the only country which is besieged with scarcity but also many other Asian and African countries.

Poverty is a socio economic phenomenon which defies any precise definition. According to the planning commission poverty line is drawn on the basis o barest minimum desirable nutritional standards of 2400 calories per person per day rural areas and 2100 calories for urban areas. Poverty may be defined as the inability to secure minimum human needs concerning food, clothing, shelter, education and health.

Around the world

More than 1.2 billion people—one in every five on Earth—survive on less than $1.25 a day. The World Bank also adds that the previous $1 a day estimate for the international poverty line would have been $1.45 a day at 2005 prices if only inflation was accounted for. Although there has been a substantial reduction in global poverty, it is marked with great regional differences. Poverty declined substantially in China and South East Asian countries as a result of rapid economic growth and massive investments in human resource development. China’s poverty rate fell from 85% to 15.9%, or by over 600 million people. China accounts for nearly all the world’s reduction in poverty. Excluding China, poverty fell only by around 10%. In the south Asian countries like India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh etc the decline has not been speedy. As a result, the World Bank senses that while China is on aim to reach the Millennium Development Goals to reduce poverty and endeavor various other issues, most other countries are not.

Despite the decline in the percentage of the poor, the number of poor has turned down marginally from 475 million to 428 million. Since there is a difference in the definition poverty line in other countries, poverty has shown higher than the national estimates.

In sub Saharan Africa, poverty has risen from 41 percent to 46 percent. In Latin America, the ratio of poverty remained the same. Poverty has also resurfaced in some of the former socialist countries like Russia.

During the 1990s the distribution of people living in extreme poverty fell from 30% to 23%. But as world population increased, the number fell only by 123 million, and if booming China is left out, the number actually increased by 28 million. Of the around six billion people in the world, at least 1.2 billion do not have access to safe drinking water. More than 2.4 billion people do not have proper sanitation facilities, and more than 2,2 million people die each year from diseases caused by polluted water and filthy sanitation conditions. Two-thirds of the world’s 876 million illiterates are women. About 80% of economically active women in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia work in agriculture.

Root of the Crisis

Politics have led to dreadful conditions in many poorer nations. In many cases, international political interests have led to a diversion of available resources from domestic needs to western markets. This has resulted in a lack of basic access to food, water, health, education and other important social services. This is a major obstacle to equitable development.

Tackling hunger is vital in making poverty history. Research suggests that developing countries that focus exclusively on poverty – without paying special attention to hunger – will take a generation longer to make real progress on improving their people’s nutrition and health. Banishing hunger must be a large part of making poverty history. One African in three is malnourished. Lack of food in Africa, like elsewhere, is equally a cause and an upshot of poverty. There is saying in Africa: “When you take hunger out of poverty, poverty is halved.”

Colonization of a country like India is a chief origin which gives birth to poverty. The policies of colonized government ruined time-honored handicrafts and dejected development of industries like textiles. This resulted in less job prospects and fewer development rate of income. This was escorted by lofty expansion velocity in population. It resulted in less job opportunities and low growth rate of incomes. The combination of both makes a growth of per capita income very low. The failure of both the fronts: promotion of economic growth and population control perpetuated the cycle of poverty.

Conclusion

Poverty has many dimensions, no matter which country we live in, all of us are silently fighting a huge war against the enemy named Poverty. Day by day challenges are becoming bigger as the researchers are broadening the concept of human poverty. We need to be fully equipped with our non violent arms to eliminate the adversary. It will be a tough war but not impossible to win. In future years, I surely hope to live in a place where everyone goes to bed with three meals per day. Hopefully we, the young generation would strive to offer the minimum necessary items to all the people.

Bibliography

1. Sen, A.K. 1983.’Poverty and Famines: An essay on entitlement and deprivation’. Oxford University Press

2. World development report. Attacking poverty, The World Bank, Oxford University Press, Delhi.

3. Deaton, Angus and Valerie Kozel (Eds) 2005. The Great Indian poverty debate. MacMillian India Limited, New delhi.

submitted by : Anisha Gohain

MBA 1st year