Whose fault is poverty? Is it the fault of the poor themselves, who should be working harder, making better decisions, and committing to their own futures? Or of society at large, for failing to provide the resources, jobs, and opportunities needed to alleviate poverty?
This question — culture versus economics — lies at the heart of a deep political divide on how to tackle poverty. You can watch it online here. It is a mistake to see poverty as a solely economic concern and ignore the role of culture, norms, and character and a mistake to do the opposite. Food for the Hungry is just one of many organizations offering solutions to global poverty.
However, there is no agreement between these organizations on the nature of the problem or its root causes, much less on how to solve it. Approaches and solutions span a wide range, each with its own theory of the why and how of poverty.
This view of poverty drives all solutions to the end of developing strong global and national economies. Lack of material goods and the ability and capacity to produce them is seen as the underlying problem. The primary means to create that capacity is through strong policy and institutions.
Besides taking a one-size-fits-all approach to poverty regardless of context, the harshest criticism of institutional-led solutions, according to Nobel prize winning economist Joseph Stigiltz, is that they always favor the interests of the financial institutions over the interests of the poor.
Like the air we breath, some cultures may simply be healthier than others. Culture thus influences a basic understanding of life and purpose, personal health, education, prosperity, and justice. Solutions in this vein would identify power structures in society and attempt to identify the underlying pretense that may intentionally keep whole groups in poverty as a means to serve the cultural majority.
The geographical or environmental view of the problem is more deterministic than either the economic or cultural approaches.
Physical location, climate, and biological distribution are aspects of this understanding of poverty. There is a famous folktale about six blind men trying to describe an elephant—all from different vantage points.
The first blind man, touching its side, described the elephant like a rough wall. Still, the fourth, fifth and sixth men described the elephant like a tree trunk, a fan, and a rope—all based on their impressions of the leg, ear, and tail of the elephant. Which one was right? Economic, cultural and geographical and environmental understandings of the problem of poverty are like this elephant, though they all have great influence today. Adolescent girls who are pregnant especially out of wedlock face even greater inequities and discrimination.
To break the cycle of hunger, we have to begin by ensuring that expecting and new mothers and their young children have the health and nutrition support they need. This means that people collectively spend million hours every day walking long distances to fetch water. Contaminated water can also lead to a host of waterborne diseases, ranging from the chronic to the life-threatening. Poor water infrastructure — such as sanitation and hygiene facilities — can compound this.
It can also create other barriers to escaping poverty, such as preventing girls from going to school during their cycles. A girl collects water from a spring near a gold mine in Gaga village, CAR. When conflict erupted in October , 58 wells were contaminated with dead bodies and rendered unusable.
This left 8, people with far fewer places to collect water. Photo: Crystal Wells. Climate change causes poverty , working as an interdependent link between not only extreme poverty but also many of the other causes on this list — including hunger , conflict, inequality, and a lack of education see below.
One report from the World Bank estimates that the climate crisis has the power to push more than million people into poverty over the next decade. They often have only just enough food and assets to last through the next season, and not enough reserves to fall back on in the event of a poor harvest. By , climate change could force more than million people into extreme poverty.
We take a look at how that breaks down into specific effects — and how we can prevent them. Not every person without an education is living in extreme poverty. But most adults living in extreme poverty did not receive a quality education. But education is often referred to as the great equalizer. UNESCO estimates that million people could be lifted out of extreme poverty if they left school with basic reading skills. Poverty threatens education, but education can also help end poverty.
What if you have to go to work, but there are no roads to get you there? Or what if heavy rains have flooded your route and made it impossible to travel? But usually we can rely on our local governments to step in. A lack of infrastructure — from roads, bridges, and wells, to cables for light, cell phones, and internet — can isolate communities living in rural areas.
Living off the grid often means living without the ability to go to school, work, or the market to buy and sell goods. Traveling further distances to access basic services not only takes time, it costs money, keeping families in poverty. Without opportunity, many find it difficult, if not impossible, to escape extreme poverty. But a large-scale epidemic or pandemic merits its own spot on this list. More localized epidemics like Ebola in West Africa and, later, in the DRC , cholera in Haiti or the DRC, or malaria in Sierra Leone have demonstrated how local and national governments can grind to a halt while working to stop the spread of a disease, provide resources to frontline workers and centers, and come up with contingency plans as day-to-day life is disrupted.
All of this comes, naturally, at a cost. This included losses in the private sector, agricultural production, and international trade. Poverty can mean a lot of different things in a lot of different contexts. But there are still some indisputable facts — and some equally persistent myths. We also pay into insurances against unemployment and fund social security through our paychecks.
Theses systems ensure that we have a safety net to fall back on if we lose our job or retire. But not every government can provide this type of help to its citizens. Especially in the face of the unexpected.
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