The United Nations' Role in Alleviating Global Poverty: An Essay

This essay delves into the multifaceted issue of global poverty, examining its causes, effects, and potential solutions, with a particular focus on the role of the United Nations. The essay highlights key factors contributing to poverty, such as illiteracy, overpopulation, diseases, and natural disasters, while also exploring the historical context of poverty, including colonialism, warfare, and inequality. It discusses the severe consequences of poverty, including malnutrition, health problems, and lack of access to education, and proposes various strategies to alleviate poverty, such as implementing social protection systems, disaster risk reduction, and promoting education and skills training. The essay also examines the Principles for Responsible Management Education supported by the United Nations, emphasizing the importance of values, partnerships, and collaboration in addressing poverty, and suggests ways corporations can contribute through corporate social responsibility, fostering economic growth, and providing financial services. The essay concludes by emphasizing the significance of education and partnerships in breaking the cycle of poverty and promoting sustainable development.

Running head: UNITED NATIONS
United Nations
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1UNITED NATIONS
INTRODUCTION:
Poverty is an extremely pertinent issue in today’s world. Poverty can be described as a
social condition wherein people do not have the money to avail basic needs such as food,
medicines, clothes and shelter and tend to be marginalized in society. Poverty is a burning issue
that needs to be acknowledged, accepted and alleviated. There has been a decrease in global
poverty with global poverty being halved since 2000, but still there is a long way to go. Efforts
are required to boost the incomes of the people who live below the poverty line, alleviate
suffering and try to build the resilience of those individuals who are still living in acute poverty,
especially those people living in sub-Saharan Arica. One should implement and expand social
protection systems and try to mitigate risks for those countries, which are disaster prone and are
also the most impoverished countries.
DISCUSSION:
In order to eliminate poverty, one must first identify the causes that lead to poverty. The
causes of poverty include illiteracy and lack of education, overpopulation, diseases and natural
causes like lack of rainfall, which leads to drought and consequently famine. Excessively rainfall
on the other hand can also lead to poverty as it may result in floods which may destroy
everything that the poor people possess. Studies conducted by the International Food Study
revealed that one of the major causes of poverty is the inability of a family to set aside financial
resources for education, property, healthcare thereby continuing the vicious cycle of poverty.
Overpopulation leads to poverty because the growth of a country’s population exceeds the
growth of a country’s development and the growth of a country’s economy. Overpopulation
further leads to unemployment and an extremely lower standard of living. Countries where

2UNITED NATIONS
agriculture is the backbone of the economy can suffer due to lack of agricultural infrastructure.
Unequal distribution of assets, inflation and price hike also lead to poverty. Gender inequality
also contributes to poverty. Poverty can also be attributed to the fact that the underprivileged
sections of society do not have access to basic amenities as well as not having access to markets
and resources. Warfare and violence also contribute to poverty as it destroys everything and
drains the resources of a nation. Nothing is ever achieved by waging a war. War only leads to a
loss of lives and the decline of a nation and its people. Another reason for poverty is also
Colonialism. The main causes of poverty are unemployment, debt, inflation, corruption, extreme
weather, lack of access to education, global hunger, mental illness and the lack of psychiatric
care, overpopulation and diseases that cause epidemics. The historical causes of poverty include
war, conquest and slavery.
The effects of poverty are extremely serious. Poverty leads to malnutrition and hunger
and people who live in abject poverty are susceptible to various diseases because impoverished
people cannot afford medicines and basic healthcare. Children who grow up in abject poverty
may suffer from severe health problems like malnutrition and various diseases than children who
grow up in an environment that possesses the financial resources to support them. Many infants
who are born in very poor households weigh very less and are more prone to diseases because of
a weak immune system which, stems from a lack of food and nourishment. They are also prone
to having physical disabilities. These infants unfortunately have a low mortality rate.
Children who live in abject poverty and are extremely poor also tend to miss school
because they fall sick very often. They do not have access to proper food and adequate food and
also do not have access to proper medical facilities or healthcare. Most of these children have

3UNITED NATIONS
problems in their eyesight and suffer from anemia because of deficiency of iron. They also have
increase levels of lead in their blood, which leads to an impairment of the functions of a brain.
Loss of jobs and subsequent poverty leads to violence in impoverished families including
abuse of the elderly and child abuse. Extreme poverty also leads to homelessness and children
who are homeless are more often than not unlikely to receive proper food, medicines and
immunization, which, in turn causes malnutrition and other diseases. Poverty is a self-
perpetuating cycle and the only way to break poverty is through education, which will lead to
employment thereby alleviating poverty. Wastage of food around the world, lack of sanitation
The governments of impoverished countries can take the following measures to alleviate
poverty. The government can implement social protection plans to prevent and reduce poverty
and inequality at every stage of the life of a person by giving them benefits for children, by
giving benefits to mother with new- born babies, people who are physically challenged, elderly
people and to those people who are poor and do not have any jobs. Studies showed that in the
year 2016, only forty-five percent of the population of the world was protected by a social
protection system. It is the responsibility of the government to ensure that elderly people get their
pensions on time regardless of where they live. The government should also provide disability
benefits to people with severe disabilities, provide unemployment benefits to those who are
unemployed and maternity benefits for expectant mothers. The government should try its best to
build the resilience of the poor in order to end extreme poverty in the most afflicted countries of
the world.
The government should ensure social protection for the destitute and the vulnerable
people in society, ensure that the poor people get access to basic services, and support people

4UNITED NATIONS
who are harmed by natural disasters. Implementing social protection programs to the
impoverished sections of society can help to alleviate poverty. Disaster risk reduction is
extremely important to ending poverty and fostering sustainable development. Disaster risk is
higher in poor countries. The government should ensure that all people, particularly those who
are poor and vulnerable have access to basic services natural resources, inheritance, new
technology and microfinance. The government should also take steps to build the resilience of
the poor and those people who are in vulnerable positions and reduce their exposure and
vulnerability to climate-related catastrophic events and other social, economic and environmental
disasters. The government should further ensure the mobilization of financial resources from a
plethora of sources in order to provide means to developing countries and the countries that are
least developed and should also implement programs and various policies to try to eliminate
poverty absolutely. Governments should also create a sound framework of policy at the regional,
national and international levels that is based on pro-poor and strategies that are gender sensitive
in order to eradicate poverty. Thus, the United Nations can adopt these rules in order to alleviate
poverty.
The primary stakeholders of an organization are the customers, shareholders, suppliers
and employees of a firm. The primary stakeholders of a firm include customers, governments,
communities and investors. The secondary stakeholders include the government, competitors,
civil society and shareholders of a firm. Media, special interest groups and trade associations are
examples of secondary stakeholders. The relationships between the primary and secondary
stakeholders in a firm are all correlated and dependent on each other. The managers of a firm
thus pay attention to the people who are stated in the above positions.

5UNITED NATIONS
The Principles for Responsible Management Education is supported by the United
Nations which was founded in the year 2007 as a policy to promote awareness and sustainability
in schools across the world and to equip students who are studying business with the ability to
bring change. It has over six hundred and fifty signatories worldwide.
The Principles for Responsible Management Education’s core principles include Purpose,
Values, Method, Research, Partnership and Dialogue (Epstein 2018) The Principle one of the UN
Principle for Responsible Management Education that includes Purpose, is of utmost importance.
The purpose is to ensure students have the capability to work for an inclusive and sustainable
global economy, wherein students are taught not to waste any kind of resources since resources
are precious and wastage of resources would only lead to resources not reaching the poor and the
downtrodden sections of society. The Principle two of the UN Principle for Responsible
Management Education that includes Values ensures that students develop social responsibility
as portrayed in international initiatives such as the United Nations Global Compact. It is of
paramount importance that students learn to have values and develop compassion towards the
poor and destitute thereby becoming better individuals, better human beings. The Principle three
of the UN Principle for Responsible Management Education, i.e. Method, will ensure the
creation of educational frameworks for students so that they learn about poverty, learn about
what causes poverty and learn how they can alleviate poverty. The Principle four of the UN
Principle for Responsible Management Education is Research, which will ensure that students
develop an understanding about the role and the impact of creating an organization that focuses
on social, environmental and economical aspects. The Principle five of the UN Principle for
Responsible Management Education is Partnership, which ensures that students are able to
understand the importance of collaboration, of collaborating with other business organizations to

6UNITED NATIONS
address the various issues of sustainability and global social responsibility. The Principle six of
the UN Principle for Responsible Management Education in Research is Dialogue that ensures
that there is a dialogue between educators, the government, business and students (Schwartz
2017 ).
Social responsibility is very important and the first way corporations can achieve the task
of alleviating poverty is by instilling the right values in students and other people. Incorporating
the right values in academics and academic activities will ensure that students develop the right
values and grow up to become good human beings and help to alleviate poverty from this world.
Incorporating the right values in individuals is extremely essential and pertinent in order to
develop a sense of compassion for others, and for humanity as a whole, to develop a charitable
nature so that one learns to help the poor and the destitute in whichever way they can. Students
can be taught the value of education and how it helps a person to become a good human being
and also how education helps to alleviate poverty by helping one to secure employment. Students
who have the right values embedded in them will grow up to teach others the value of education
and how it ensures employment thereby helping to alleviate poverty.
The second recommendation by which corporations can achieve their goals is through
partnerships and collaborations. Corporations can come together and collaborate with each other
and take remedial steps to eliminate poverty. Corporations can donate various resources to the
poor and destitute as part of their corporate social responsibility. Corporations can also address
generic social impacts through good corporate citizenship. If there is an overall growth in
economy, then poverty can be curtailed. The industrial revolution led to a high growth in
economy thereby eliminating high levels of poverty which, led to what is now known as the
developed countries. Poverty can be curtailed by giving financial services such as savings to the

7UNITED NATIONS
poor and the destitute through mobile banking. Alleviation of poverty also include the
improvement of living conditions of the poor. Illiteracy or lack of education is one of the major
causes of poverty and companies can allot money for spreading education among the
underprivileged sections of society as part of their corporate social responsibility. A root cause of
poverty among the underprivileged section of society is the lack of access to resources and
markets. Companies can address this issue by providing training in skills to the underprivileged
sections of society. Skills training help people to qualify for jobs thereby bringing in revenue and
alleviating poverty from their lives. Providing financial resources to the poor communities can
help them set up cooperatives thereby helping them to come out of the vicious cycle of poverty.
A bank can be established to give microloans to the poor people so that they are able to
start an enterprise or a small business (Spencer 2017). People who are poor may not qualify for
bank loans from conventional banks as they lack the collateral that is needed, lack a steady
employment and a credit history that is verified. Due to this, they may be forced to borrow
money from moneylenders who charge a high rate of interest that will take away a large part of
their salary. Microloans on the other hand are short-term loans with repayment schedules that are
flexible. Another means by which companies can alleviate poverty is by providing women with
opportunities so that they can become financially independent.
CONCLUSION
To conclude, one can say that companies can help to alleviate poverty from society.
Companies can donate a substantial part of their profits to charitable causes thereby curtailing
poverty. They can also reduce the prices of their goods and services so that the poor and the
destitute can afford to buy their products and avail their services. Companies can also employ

8UNITED NATIONS
more staff thereby helping to reduce unemployment. Companies can recruit local people from
the economies they are operating in like Coca Cola. Companies can also increase the salary of
their employees or provide them with the required training and learning skills. Prioritizing staff
development can also help to alleviate poverty. Companies can also create indirect jobs and
substitute products that are imported with goods that are made locally, especially if they are
agricultural goods because that requires a labour intensive force, thereby promoting employment
and consequently helping to revive the economy. One should also buy locally. Companies should
start to perceive the poor people as potential customers and try to meet their needs. In Argentina,
the destitute people pay twice the amount for gas than the wealthy and affluent sections of
society. Giving the poor people biogas outfits which will help them to produce gas, which they
can then sell, and also use for domestic needs will be extremely beneficial for them since they
will no longer have to pay a lot of money for gas. The World Business Council for Sustainable
Development, the UN Global Compact and the World Economic Forum are various forums
wherein companies can share strategies that can help the world to become a better place.
Government officials of various countries preside over these meetings and discuss ways to
improve the conditions of the poor and help to alleviate poverty from the world. Companies can
also start or invest in small and medium sized enterprises in developing countries and recruiters
can insist on hiring only those people who are unemployed and in desperate need of a job
thereby creating employment opportunities in developing countries and contributing towards
alleviating poverty.

9UNITED NATIONS
REFERENCES:
Bailey, S.K., 2018. Ethics and the public service. In Classics of Administrative Ethics (pp. 63-
78). Routledge.
Bobby Banerjee, S., 2014. A critical perspective on corporate social responsibility: Towards a
global governance framework. Critical perspectives on international business, 10(1/2), pp.84-95.
Cheng, B., Ioannou, I. and Serafeim, G., 2014. Corporate social responsibility and access to
finance. Strategic management journal, 35(1), pp.1-23.
Clapp, J. and Rowlands, I.H., 2014. Corporate social responsibility. Essential concepts of global
environmental governance, 42.
Deterding, S., Canossa, A., Harteveld, C., Cooper, S., Nacke, L.E. and Whitson, J.R., 2015,
April. Gamifying research: Strategies, opportunities, challenges, ethics. In Proceedings of the

10UNITED NATIONS
33rd Annual ACM Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems
(pp. 2421-2424). ACM.
Epstein, M.J., 2018. Making sustainability work: Best practices in managing and measuring
corporate social, environmental and economic impacts. Routledge.
Flammer, C., 2015. Does corporate social responsibility lead to superior financial performance?
A regression discontinuity approach. Management Science, 61(11), pp.2549-2568.
Fraser, N., 2018. Recognition without ethics?. In The culture of toleration in diverse societies.
Manchester University Press.
Ioannou, I. and Serafeim, G., 2015. The impact of corporate social responsibility on investment
recommendations: Analysts' perceptions and shifting institutional logics. Strategic Management
Journal, 36(7), pp.1053-1081.
Lins, K.V., Servaes, H. and Tamayo, A., 2017. Social capital, trust, and firm performance: The
value of corporate social responsibility during the financial crisis. The Journal of Finance, 72(4),
pp.1785-1824.
Luo, X., Wang, H., Raithel, S. and Zheng, Q., 2015. Corporate social performance, analyst stock
recommendations, and firm future returns. Strategic Management Journal, 36(1), pp.123-136.
Ni, A. and Van Wart, M., 2015. Corporate Social Responsibility: Doing Well and Doing Good.
In Building Business-Government Relations (pp. 175-196). Routledge.
Pillai, N., 2018. Corporate Social Responsibility. ‘EMERGING TRENDS IN MANAGEMENT–
NEW PERSPECTIVES AND PRACTICES’, p.338.
Pratama, Y.A., Amboningtyas, D. and Yulianeu, Y., 2017. THE INFLUENCE OF GOOD
CORPORATE GOVERNANCE AND FINANCIAL LEVERAGE TO PROFITABILITY WITH
CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AS INTERVENING VARIABLE (CASE

11UNITED NATIONS
STRUDY ON MANUFACTURING COMPANIES LISTED ON BEI PERIOD 2012-2016).
Journal of Management, 3(3).
Schwartz, M.S., 2017. Corporate social responsibility. Routledge.
Shamir, R., 2017. Between self-regulation and the Alien Tort Claims Act: On the contested
concept of corporate social responsibility. In Crime and Regulation (pp. 155-183). Routledge.
Sorokin, P., 2017. Social and cultural dynamics: A study of change in major systems of art, truth,
ethics, law and social relationships. Routledge.
Spencer, H., 2017. The data of ethics. Routledge.
Tai, F.M. and Chuang, S.H., 2014. Corporate social responsibility. Ibusiness, 6(03), p.117.
Tran, B., 2018. Corporate social responsibility. Advanced Methodologies and Technologies in
Business Operations and Management, p.270.