Poverty A Global Issue - Assignment
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Added on 2021-04-21
Poverty A Global Issue - Assignment
Added on 2021-04-21
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RUNNING HEAD: Poverty- A Global IssuePoverty- A GlobalIssueKeywords: poverty, sustainable development, stakeholder groups, global prevalence of poverty, poverty implications for business, principles of sustainability
Poverty- A Global Issue1Poverty can be defined as the scarcity or lack of money or certain amount of material possessions. It is considered to be a multifaceted concept in which political, social and economic elements are included. Poverty comprises of various dimensions and is pronounced depreciation in well- being. It includes incompetence of a person to obtain the basic goods and services that are required for survival with self- respect along with people with low income. The term poverty also comprises of poor access to sanitation and clean water, low levels of education and health, lack of voice, inadequate physical security and lack of opportunity and capability to improve their quality of life. In other words, the inability of having opportunities and choices which is also the violation of human dignity is called poverty (Hagenaars, 2014). It means the lack of required capability for effectively participating in the society. It comprises of powerlessness, insecurity and exclusion of households, individuals and communities. It implies vulnerability to violence and living in fragile and marginal environments without proper access to sanitation or clean water. Poverty is considered among the leading problems of the world particularly in the underdeveloped countries (Smith, 2015). Poverty is considered to be either relative or absolute. Destitution, absolute poverty or extreme poverty is regarded as the complete unavailability of means required for meeting the basic personal needs of an individual such as food, shelter and clothing. Absolute poverty provides a set standard which does not change over time and countries. It does not depend only on income of an individual by also depends on the access to services (Hagenaars, 2017). The amount of wealth necessary for the purpose of survival is not similar in all time periods and places especially in the countries that are highly developed where a small number of people fall below the poverty line provided by the World Bank Group. On the other hand, relative poverty is considered to be a degree of inequality in income. The measurement of relative poverty is made as the percentage of population whose income is lower than the proportion of income fixed as themedian income (Fritzell, Rehnberg, Hertzman & Blomgren, 2015). There are a variety of incomeinequality metrics such as the Theil Index or the Gini coefficient. In case of wealthy developed countries, relative poverty is considered to be the most suitable measure for finding out the rate of poverty. Relative poverty measure is also utilized by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), United Nations Development Program (UNDP), Canadian poverty researchers and the Organization for Economic Co- operation and Development (OECD).
Poverty- A Global Issue2The forecasts of the World Bank provide that in the year 1990, 702.1 million people down, from 1.75 billion were suffering from extreme poverty. 35.2% of such population which is nearly about 347.1 million people belonged to Sub- Saharan Africa and 13.5% of such population which is nearly about 231.3 million people belonged to South Asia (Landes, 2015). The World Bank further provides that between the years 1990 and 2012, there was a fall in the percentage ofpopulation of the world that suffers from extreme poverty levels from 37.1% to 9.6%. This was the first time when there was a fall in the poverty levels of more than 10% (The World Bank, 2015). The current economic model suggests that it would require another 100 years for bringingthe poorest of the world to the levels of the previous poverty lines i.e. $1.25 per day (Lustig & Silber, 2016). The prevalence of extreme poverty around the globe has made it a global challenge which can be witnessed all across the globe including in the developed economies. Theestimation of United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) provides that approximately half of the children in the world or 1.1 billion survive in poverty. Some academics suggest that poverty and inequality is exacerbated by the neoliberal policies encouraged by the global financial institutions such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF). However, over the past decades, there has been noticeable improvement in the reduction of poverty. The Millennium Developmental Goal (MDG) target of cutting the poverty rate of 1990 in half by the year 2015 was achieved by the world in the year 2010 which was five years faster than the schedule (Bhalla & Lapeyre, 2016). Despite the progress made in terms of poverty reduction, there are a high number of people across the globe who still live in extreme poverty. The growth forecasts of the world further suggest that the poverty reduction will not be able to take up the speed required reaching the goal of ending extreme poverty by the year 2030. The term sustainable development can be defined as a dynamic process with the help of which people are enabled for realizing their complete potential and improving their quality of life in a manner which at the same time enhances and protects the life support systems on the earth. It means development that fulfills the requirement of present generations without negotiating the capability of future generations for meeting their needs (Global Footprints, 2018). There is a strong connection between the issues of poverty and sustainability. There cannot be successful sustainable development in the globe without addressing the major global issues of sustainabilityand poverty. This inverse relationship plays an important role in the success of eradication of poverty. With the decrease in poverty, sustainability is required to be increased in order to enable
Poverty- A Global Issue3the communities to continue growing on their own after the aid is gone (Holden, Linnerud & Banister, 2017). Therefore, poverty cannot be ended without environmental sustainability. In order to aid the most excluded and very poorest groups of the people, the world needs to go further than the established Millennium Developmental Goals. Agenda 21 and the United Nations Sustainable Development action plan brought the attention of the world towards the concept of sustainability and emphasized on the multidimensional nature of poverty (Le Blanc, 2015). In the year 1997, it was decided that poverty eradication will be considered as the overriding theme of sustainable development for the upcoming years. Children suffer from undernourishment which prevents them from realizing their complete cognitive and physical potential, livelihoods, costing lives and economic growth (The Borgen Project, 2014). There are a variety of key approaches to poverty which include monetary approach, capability approach, social exclusion and participatory approach. The monetary approach is considered as the traditional approach which is held by most of the experts and people. This approach defines poverty as the lack of income or material resources. People are regarded as poor if they do not have money. The approach is expressed with poverty lines and can be estimated on the basis of consumption or income (De Neubourg, De Milliano & Plavgo, 2014). For the assessment of poverty levels, it is assumed that all the necessary products and services are involved in the basket and there is efficient spending of money by the poor without making the purchase of any non- essential items. Another approach is the capability approach. The scope of capability approach is much beyond the material understanding of poverty provided by the monetary approach. This approach provides that the presence of material resources does not guarantee the well- being of an individual since their mere presence does not involve their enjoyment. For example, when a person is rich but suffers from a severe disease, he might not be able to enjoy his wealth. In such a case, the person will be considered as poor or greatly deprived. Thus, the definition of poverty under capability approach explains poverty as the shortage of opportunities to enjoy the type of lives which is valued by people. The focus is on the requirements for living avalued life and on human freedom. This approach is more satisfactory in comparison with the monetary approach as it provides a complete framework in describing poverty in perspective of lives lived by people along with the freedoms enjoyed by them. Another approach is known as the social exclusion approach. The social exclusion approach considers the restrictions of the monetary approach but emphasizes on the procedures of marginalization to particular groups.
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