The Fight Against Extreme Poverty: A Global Effort

The assignment delves into the topic of poverty as a human rights issue, highlighting its disproportionate effect on women and the poor. It also references the Millennium Development Goals and the progress made towards eradicating extreme poverty. The document emphasizes the importance of a united effort from the international community to achieve this objective.

Running head: HUMAN RIGHTS
HUMAN RIGHTS
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note:

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Every individual is born with some rights that is intricately associated with the
subsistence of that individual human being in a fulfilling manner in an environment where that
individual may realise his or her fullest potential. Human rights must be as old as the existence of
humanity, but the recognition of human rights have been a modern phenomenon especially after
the devastations experienced by humanity post the two world wars and formation of the United
Nations. The world wars had made the people gone through enough hardships and unimaginable
sufferings. People were dying like never before, the nations which were capturing other nations
used severe oppression’s as a tool to dominate its people, there was scarcity of food, people were
dying of diseases without treatment, there was no education, and everything in life of the people
in the countries at war was uncertain. After the world wars were over people had realised the
futility of going to war and the nations formed the United Nations Organisation to settle disputes
in a peaceful manner. The “United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights” (UDHR)
was adopted by the United Nations in December 10th 1948 which officially started the initiative
of establishing Human Rights as a compulsory practice to be followed by all the authorities
throughout the globe (Donnelly 2013). It states “Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and
of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of
freedom, justice and peace in the world, Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have
resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a
world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear
and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people” (Un.org, 2018).
Although such declarations have been put into place and all the civilised nations
worldwide are working to eliminate any discrepancies and discriminations in terms of rights of
the people, the two greatest challenge towards human rights today are poverty and terrorism.

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These two challenges are proving to be the hardest ones to be dealt with and eradicated. Extreme
poverty takes away the right to food, right to education, right to medical care and other basic
rights which are necessary to survive in a fulfilling manner. The recent report of the World Food
Program, the United Nations' nourishment organization, that 18,000 kids die of hunger and ailing
health consistently underscores the earnest requirement for all administrations to react to
destitution in every one of its signs (Kumar, 2007). Neediness is likely the most genuine human
rights and improvement challenge both progressed and developing nations confront. The
acknowledgment of destitution as a human rights issue is a current advancement. It concurs with
the more noteworthy acknowledgment of monetary, social, and social rights as enforceable
human rights as opposed to insignificant arrangement goals. In September 2000, at the “United
Nations Millennium Summit”, world pioneers consented to an arrangement of time-bound
quantifiable objectives and focuses for battling neediness, hunger, infection, lack of education,
ecological debasement, and victimization of women (Assembly, 2013). Among these targets,
which are currently called the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the first is to
destroy “extreme poverty” and hunger. In particular, the objective is to diminish significantly the
extent of individuals living on not as much as a dollar daily and the extent of individuals who
experience the ill effects of appetite.
Global Justice is a topic of contentious debate all over the world. What is Just in one part
of the world actually may not reflect justice in other parts where the concept may be different.
However, the basic justice towards human life remains the same in all such cases. By correlation
with the baffling and undeveloped condition of this subject, domestic political hypothesis is
extremely well comprehendible, with different profoundly created hypotheses offering solutions
for very much characterized issues. By contrasts, ideas and hypotheses, worldwide justice are in

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the beginning times of development, and it isn't clear what the fundamental inquiries are, not to
mention the fundamental conceivable answers.
A cosmopolitan approach to global justice treats global injustice as a problem to whole of
humanity and recognizes the need of unitedly dealing with the problem so that such injustice can
be rooted out from its base universally without distinctions. This approach believes that the
problem requires a lawful international approach and response which will be supplemented by
long lasting strategy that will address the causes of poverty and injustice from their roots. This
approach reflects important aspects of liberalism, Marxism, and other similar theories. The statist
approach of global justice on the other hand global injustice as actions of prejudice that might
necessitate a dynamic response not only against the individual injustice caused but also against
causes that are influencing and catering to such injustice. According to this approach the states in
which injustices such as poverty, inequality and hunger prevails, those states are individually
responsible for eradication of such problems. This approach obviously has much in common
with a realist worldview.
“The American Declaration of the Rights of Man (Organization of American States,
1948), the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (United Nations, 1948) and the subsequent
International Covenant on Economic and Social Rights (United Nations, 1966)” all these
declarations had expressed rights as- “living in proper conditions, well-being facilities,
healthcare, education, support during disability and old age, employment and protection against
unemployment, and limited working hours” (Nickel, 2005).
In ‘Poverty and Rights’ James Nickel has also stated “The idea of subsistence alone
offers too minimal a conception of economic and social rights. It neglects education, gives an
extremely minimal account of health services, and generally gives too little attention to people’s

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ability to be active participants and contributors. It covers the requirements of having a life, but
neglects the conditions of being able to lead one’s life.” Therefore, just declaring subsistence and
survival with minimum food supply and basic healthcare as human rights is not enough
according to the author. Educations is important to understand and realize the full potential of the
individual self hence it needs to be included in the list of basic human rights. Apart from that
wellbeing and nutritional fulfillment are some other important factors which are inherently
necessary to live a desirable lifestyle. Hence in many of the countries which fall into the category
of under developed and poor, individual human beings are devoid of access to minimum
resources which are necessary for what can be called “living” in its true essence.
Accommodation which protects from natural calamities and extreme weather conditions,
education that will provide employment, food that will provide nourishment and healthcare that
will provide wellbeing are minimum necessities for human life to thrive and survive. Extreme
poverty acts as a deterrence to access of an individual to all these resources and hampers the
lifestyle and deprives the individual of “human rights”.
The issue of subsistence essentially deals with what can be defined as survival with
dignity. The term “poor” can have different sets of standards in different countries therefore the
term poverty has different meanings and definition in various parts of the globe (Fisher & Fisher,
2012). The United Nations had published the Human Development Report in 1997 which has a
definition of poverty which is "denial of choices and opportunities most basic to human
development—to lead a long, healthy, creative life and enjoy a decent standard of living,
freedom, self-esteem, and the respect of others." The definition has been devised keeping in
mind all aspects of human development including “personal, political, social, and financial”
(Ravallion, 2012). Not all endeavors to characterize the state of being poor are as

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comprehensive. All the more normally, the emphasis has been on the financial side of neediness
—how much cash individuals make contrasted and other individuals. Since the mid-1990s
organizations have perceived that destitution influences in excess of a man's wage and utilization
propensities, prompting extended definitions—likewise called composite markers—utilized by
the United Nations, the World Bank, and others. The agencies including the government mostly
breaks down poverty into two divisions, “absolute poverty and relative poverty”. Absolute
poverty reflects the condition of a person where the basic minimum needs like accommodation,
clothes and food is unavailable to the individual, relative poverty is not such a critical condition
but a condition which reflects a situation where the economic and social condition of the person
is not as good as others living in the same society (Tomuschat, 2014).
The government authorities in USA explains “An absolute poverty line is one which is
constructed as an estimate of families' minimum consumption needs; this is done without
reference to the income or consumption levels of the general population. In the same context, a
relative poverty line is one which is set as a fraction of the median or mean income or
consumption of the population as a whole (generally with appropriate adjustments for family
size).” (Census.gov, 2018).
In 1955 there was the “United Nations World Summit for Social Development” held in
Denmark, where there are 117 countries signed the Copenhagen declaration which defined
absolute poverty as “Absolute poverty is a condition characterised by severe deprivation of basic
human needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education,
and information. It depends not only on income but also on access to social services” (Chawla,
2016). There truly is no "universally acknowledged" meaning of neediness, to a great extent in

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light of the fact that the global group still can't seem to concede to whether destitution ought to
be characterized and estimated crosswise over nations or inside them.
Ivan P. Felligi, “Chief Statistician of Canada”, in “On Poverty and Low Income” (1997)
noticed that the possibility of supreme destitution is especially tricky: "Before anybody can
figure the base salary expected to buy the 'necessities' of life, they should choose what
constitutes a 'need' in sustenance, apparel, shelter, and a large number of different buys, from
transportation to perusing material." For instance, a donkey may be a need for a family living in
a remote town in Africa yet would be pointless to a family in an American internal city; a tent
may be the perfect haven for a traveling family, though the individuals who live in one place
require a more changeless structure. In a city with satisfactory open transportation, a man would
not really require an auto, but rather those living in provincial zones won't not have some other
choices for transportation.” (Fellegi, 1997). He also indicated that the exact definition and idea
of poverty can change from place to place and also from time to time. The conditions that were
regarded as acceptable in previous times are in present times termed as inhumane in many cases.
Resources like indoor drainage facilities and electric lines are now basic necessities in the USA
which previously when these were introduced was regarded as luxuries. The threshold of rich in
one country may still be poor in rich countries. Therefore, the problem of threshold lies in the
fact that the threshold of poverty and below poverty situations are different in various countries
depending on the overall economic situation of the country. The person who is regarded to live
below the poverty line in USA may be actually not a very poor person according to the
Afghanistan standards.
Hypothetical ways to deal with the defence of human rights normally expect one to leave
aside numerous conceivable beginning stages and contentions in request to have an incorporated

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and stingy hypothetical structure (Freeman, 2017). In the event that human nobility, for instance,
isn't one of the key standards of the hypothesis it is probably going to vanish, never to be seen
again. It won't do any work in legitimizing human rights, regardless of whether it is appropriate
to do as such. In spite of the fact that regulating hypothesis is a profitable venture inside theory,
its quest for hypothetical straightforwardness may influence human rights to appear to be less
legitimate than they as a matter of fact are. When one drives great methods for supporting human
rights off the stage and puts one's own particular supported path in the spotlight, the favoured
defence is probably going to look thin and helpless. Alone under the spotlight, its powerless
spots are probably going to be clear, and it might appear glaringly evident that it can't in any
way, shape or form legitimize the full scope of human rights (Donnelly, 2013). Therefore, the
meaning of basic subsistence is not just getting access to food but also getting resources such as
education and healthcare to lead a fulfilling life. The issue of threshold on the other hand is the
inequality of the meaning of poverty in different parts of the globe.
Eradication of extreme poverty and providing resources for minimum subsistence to the
individuals is something that is the need of the hour, however the responsibility of providing
such resources lies with whom and who is or are the body who can be questioned when there is a
violation of human right in any part of the world is a matter of debate. The government of the
country in which such violation takes place is one of the authorities that is responsible for the
condition of its citizens. Providing education, healthcare, food and shelter are some of the
minimum resources that the government of the countries all over the globe should be providing
to its citizens (Donnelly & Whelan, 2017). However, in the poor countries the government do not
have the economic and financial backbone that it can take out the population from extreme
poverty and provide them with necessary requirements. The government of the countries in poor

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regions of the world like African countries find it difficult to run their own administration, the
question of initiating the endeavour to bring out people from poverty is a distant dream. In such
situations the international agencies and organisations to work towards elimination of poverty
should come forward and provide economic and logistic support to the people in need of such
countries. However, the question of the responsibility still remains, if such economic and logistic
assistance is not provided to the people under extreme poverty range, then who is to question?
When the government of the place is itself unable to enable substantial help in such situation the
problem of the conspicuousness of delegation of responsibility is all the more visible. The
international agencies and organisations that work for uplifting the poor throughout the globe,
whether they can be questioned, and whether it’s their responsibility to eradicate poverty or they
are doing it as a humanitarian activity, is still not having a clearly defined answer.
That worldwide financial emergency quickened and additionally featured changes and
difficulties that lawmakers and arrangement producers are as yet battling with. Humanity have to
accomplish something other than having the correct contentions about good obligation and basic
enthusiasm to disclose to general society why we should keep subsidizing abroad guide when we
are being requested to cut spending plans at home (Alexander, 2012). The world now confronts
an issue of asset reports, as well as an issue of moving worldwide adjust. What's more, in this
evolving setting, universal advancement must be driven by in excess of a journey for an
incentive for cash. It should likewise be driven by values. Similarly, that the obligation to secure
has driven us to consider how the world reacts to genocide and wrongdoings against mankind,
the human civilisation should now build up a “responsibility” to the poor to manage our
activities in universal advancement, keeping in mind that a large number of the poorest wind up
disregarded behind national outskirts and factual classifications. The responsibility should be

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taken up by everyone in the human society and not just governments or international agencies
working with the United Nations. Of course the responsibility of the government and the United
Nation agencies working to eradicate the problems of extreme poverty is much more than the
civil society, however, without the support of the civil society and each member of the human
family accomplishing such a massive objective is impossible. Therefore, the responsibility lies
with each individual person to do as much or as little as he or she can to establish a prosperous
and just society.
Consistently, in excess of 6 million youngsters die because of lack of healthy sustenance.
Consistently, in excess of 800 million individuals sleep hungry. A minute passes and a lady dies
in pregnancy or labour. The reason for all these tragedies is common- extreme poverty. Poverty
is a human rights issue, one that influences individuals in each country all over the globe
(Igneski, 2017).
The “International Day for the Eradication of Poverty” is on 17th October, a day that
began in 1993 by the UN "to advance consciousness of the need to destroy to promote awareness
of the need to eradicate poverty and destitution in all countries." Soon from there on, at the
“Millennium Summit” in 2000, pioneers from around the world laid out a particular objective:
cutting the quantity of individuals living in outrageous destitution, those whose salary is short of
one dollar daily, by 2015 (Amnestyusa.org, 2018). “Half by 2015”. However generous advance
has been made in numerous nations, as anyone might expect, the world is not on track to meet
this objective. As the world ponders back what has been accomplished, how much more remote
despite everything we need to go, and how one can arrive, one should consider how firmly
intertwined poverty is with the lives of women around the globe. Women and young ladies are
excessively influenced by destitution, speaking to 70% of the world's poor. In addition, ladies

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perform 66 percent of the world's work, deliver 50 percent of the sustenance, however gain just
10 percent of the wage and claim only 1 percent of the property (Amnestyusa.org, 2018). A
united effort of the international community to launch a fight against extreme poverty and not
giving up until and unless the objective have been reached will surely bear results.

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Reference:
Alexander, D. (2012). Responsibility to the poor: a matter of justice, not charity | Douglas
Alexander. the Guardian. Retrieved 17 March 2018, from
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2010/oct/08/douglas-
alexander-responsibility-poor-justice
Amnestyusa.org. (2018). Poverty is a Human Rights Issue. Amnestyusa.org. Retrieved 17 March
2018, from https://blog.amnestyusa.org/escr/poverty-is-a-human-rights-issue/
Assembly, U. G. (2013). A life of dignity for all: accelerating progress towards the Millennium
Development Goals and advancing the United Nations development agenda beyond
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Freeman, M. (2017). Human rights. John Wiley & Sons.

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Igneski, V. (2017). The Human Right to Subsistence and the Collective Duty to Aid. The
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