GLOBAL POVERTY

Global Poverty

Global Poverty

Introduction

Poverty is a major concern for developing countries and it is a major concern for many international organizations such as the World Bank and United Nation. Orthodox view of poverty is that people do not have enough money to afford basic necessities. Whereas, critical view of poverty is a financial crisis facing by the whole world caused poverty by affecting macroeconomic indicators. There are few social indicators that caused poverty and needs to be address. Recent approach, neoliberal approach, states points for the reduction of poverty and United Nation also defines Millennium Development Goals to reduce poverty.

Discussion

Poverty

Each country defines poverty in their ways; there is not one definition for poverty. Generally it is defined as having a deficiency of money or means of survival or state of being poor (Barker, 1997). Means of survival are measured by safe drinking water, hygiene, waste collection, roads, street lights, footpaths, transportation, electricity, and other infrastructure services. People living in poverty have a low level of income and miss out opportunities and resources that others take for granted.

Global Poverty

The world is divided into seven areas. Namely Europe & Central Asia, East Asia & Pacific, Middle East & North Africa, South Asia, Sub-Saharan & Africa, Latin America & Caribbean, and North America. In a study by The World Bank (2008) of global poverty, 1.3 billion people hang about below the poverty line with an income of US $ 1.25 a day. More than 1/3rd of world's population, 2.5 billion people lives below the income of US $ 2 a day. We can see a wide gap between rich and poor in some developing countries.

Figure 1: People living less than $ 1.25 (World Bank, 2008). Source:http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty

In many countries, the majority of poor is comprised of women with children. Women can prevent children from poverty by facing hardship and educate them for a brighter future but, their chances are rare. Usually girls get less education because they are busy helping in the household and have to face drop out from schools. They fail to understand that educating a woman or girl tends to give better nutrition to their family in many different aspects. Those with less education usually stay in the rank of poor, as they get poor wages or stay unemployed. Poor families unable to educate their child and them also end up having poor paid jobs, and it continues through generation to generation.

Bad health or disability may affect the income of household as they fail to work full time, which ends up in a cut in wages or salary. It not only leads to lost in income, but increases in expenses of medicines and treatments. Spread of HIV has been identified in Africa because of poverty; nearly 34 million people were infected with AIDS in 1999.

Orthodox view on poverty

People falls in poverty line do not have enough money to satisfy their basic need, such as home for shelter, food, and safe drinking ...