Poverty

Vipul
Maharaja Sawai Man Singh Vidyalaya
India

In absolute terms, poverty means having income and/or wealth too low to maintain what is considered a minimum standard of living and health. There are different ways to describe poverty. For example, it can be defined in terms of material need, which typically includes the necessities of daily living, such as food, clothing, shelter and health care. Poverty in this sense may be understood as the deprivation of essential goods and services and describes a lack of sufficient income and wealth. The meaning of 'sufficient' varies widely across the different political and economic parts of the world.

The anti-poverty strategy of the World Bank depends heavily on reducing poverty through the promotion of economic growth. However, some consider this approach does not actively or directly work to reduce or eliminate poverty. There can be different methods for the eradication of poverty. The government can, for example, directly help those in need. This has been applied with mixed results in most Western societies during the 20th century in what became known as the welfare state. This approach is especially targeted at those most at risk, such as the elderly and people with disabilities. Such help can be, for example, monetary or food aid.

The government should provide affordable housing development and urban regeneration, affordable education, health care, providing help in finding employment, subsidising the employment of groups that have difficulty finding work otherwise, and encouraging political and community participation.

Eliminating poverty globally is an ethical, social, political and economic goal. It can only be reached through a multidimensional and integrated approach that combines programs and projects targeted at people living in poverty with policies and strategies that meet the basic needs of all. There is a need to strengthen their productive capacities and empower them to participate in decision-making on policies that affect them. Such efforts must ensure access to productive resources, opportunities and public services, and enhance social protection and lessen vulnerability. Sustained and broad-based economic advancement, social development and environmental protection are essential for boosting living standards and for eradicating poverty in a sustained manner.

The United Nations system, by virtue of its global reach, its universal membership, its impartiality and the mandate reflected in its Charter, has a major role to play in eradicating poverty. Reaffirming earlier resolutions on poverty eradication and building on action taken at the 1995 Social Summit, the General Assembly proclaimed the period from 1997 to 2006 as the first United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty. In December 1996, the General Assembly decided that the theme for the decade would be the eradication of poverty as an ethical, social, political and economic imperative of humankind.

The Assembly also decided that the decade's objective was to eradicate absolute poverty, and reduce overall global poverty through decisive national action and international cooperation in implementing fully and effectively all relevant agreements, commitments and recommendations of major United Nations conferences since 1990. It recommended that the causes of poverty be addressed through action in the areas of the environment, food security, population, migration, health, shelter, human resources development, including clean water and sanitation, rural development and productive employment, and by addressing the needs of vulnerable groups. Action in all of these areas should aim at the social and economic integration of people living in poverty. It contends that the eradication of absolute poverty will be achieved if there is enough will, wisdom and work.

Many developing countries, such as Chile, China, Costa Rica, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Thailand, Trinidad and Tunisia, have been successful in reducing poverty. A number of developing countries, including China, which has a population of over 1.6 billion people, have slashed in half the proportion of their population in poverty in less than two decades. Ten other countries, including India, which has more than one billion people, have reduced poverty by 25 per cent.

A little known fact about poverty is that one third of deaths - some 18 million people a year or 50,000 per day - are due to poverty related causes. That's 270 million people since 1990, the majority of whom were women and children. This is roughly equal to the population of the USA. Every year nearly 11 million children die before their fifth birthday. Furthermore, 1.1 billion people have consumption levels below US$1 a day and 2.7 billion lived on less than US$2 a day. It is estimate that some 800 million people go to bed hungry every day.

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