Politology / 5. Political Sociology

Ivanchenko T.U. - tutor, Zhivolup A.V- 3d year student, Faculty of Economics

South-Russia State University of Economics and Services, Russia

Poverty As The Most Serious Problem Facing The World

A common method used to measure poverty is based on incomes or consumption levels. A person is considered poor if his or her consumption or income level falls below some minimum level necessary to meet basic needs. This minimum level is usually called the "poverty line". What is necessary to satisfy basic needs varies across time and societies. Therefore, poverty lines vary in time and place, and each country uses lines which are appropriate to its level of development, social norms and values.

When estimating poverty worldwide, the same reference poverty line has to be used, and expressed in a common unit across countries. Therefore, for the purpose of global aggregation and comparison, the World Bank uses reference lines set at $1.25 and $2 per day.

Poverty rates for a country are typically not reported in every year. This is due to the fact that most countries do not conduct the detailed household surveys necessary for poverty measurement on an annual basis. When survey data are not available for a particular year, poverty measures can be interpolated /extrapolated. This was last done for 2005.

In December, 2010, the Poverty and Inequality Practice Group of the World Bank held a workshop on different approaches to multidimensional poverty analysis. The situation with poverty all over the world is discussed constantly at different levels and it is being widely enlightened in world mass media and net. More than 200 medical and scientific journals from 34 developing and developed countries are simultaneously publishing articles on poverty and human development to raise awareness and disseminate research about this critically important global topic.

To say that the facts and statistics on worldwide poverty are troubling is an understatement; they are overwhelming and only getting worse on a daily basis.

Poverty is the state of one who lacks a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live in absolute poverty today. Relative poverty refers to lacking a usual or socially acceptable level of resources or income as compared with others within a society or country.

There are many inter-related issues causing hunger, which are related to economics and other factors that cause poverty. They include land rights and ownership, diversion of land use to non-productive use, increasing emphasis on export-oriented agriculture, inefficient agricultural practices, war, famine, drought, over-fishing, poor crop yields, etc.

Almost half of the world – over 3 billion people - has to survive with less than $2.50 a day. At least 80% of the world’s population lives in countries where income differentials are widening. The gap between rich industrialized nations and poor developing countries is growing. The causes are numerous, including a lack of individual responsibility, bad government policy, exploitation by people and businesses with power and influence, or some combination of these and other factors.

Cutbacks in health, education and other vital social services around the world have resulted from structural adjustment policies prescribed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank as conditions for loans and repayment. In addition, developing nation governments are required to open their economies to compete with each other and with more powerful and established industrialized nations. To attract investment, poor countries enter a spiraling race to the bottom to see who can provide lower standards, reduced wages and cheaper resources. This has increased poverty and inequality for most people. It also forms a backbone to what we today call globalization.

Globalization is having a negative impact on the poor in both the industrialized world and developing one. The poorest 40% of the world’s population accounts for 5% of global income while the richest 20% accounts for three-quarters of world income. According to the new economic data American consumers are spending again, they are back at the shopping malls and buying durable goods, which could indicate that the worse of the recession is over. While this is good for Wall Street, which has regained all of its losses from the crash of 2008, it is not necessary good news for our society as a whole.

According to UNICEF, 22.000 children die each day due poverty. They die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and week in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death. Among the 2.2 b. children worldwide, an estimated 1b. lives in poverty. Around 27-28% of all children in developing countries are underweight or stunted. The two regions that account for the bulk of the deficit are South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

There are currently 121 million children with no access to education worldwide. And these are regarded as optimistic numbers. Less than 1% of what the world spends on weapons every year is needed to put every child into school. Nearly a billion people entered the 21^st century unable to read a book or sign their names.

Infectious diseases continue to blight the lives of the poor across the world. An estimated 40 million people are living with HIV/AIDS, with 2.5-3 mln. deaths a year. Every year there are 350-500 mln. cases of malaria, with 1mln. fatalities. Africa accounts for 90% of malarial deaths.

In developing countries some 2.5 b. people are forced to rely on biomass-fuelwood, charcoal and animal dung to meet their energy needs for cooking. In Sab-Sahara Africa, over 80% of the population depends on traditional biomass for cooking, as do half of the population of India and china.

Indoor air pollution resulting from the use of solid fuels is a major killer. There are 4000 deaths a day and it exceeds total deaths from malaria and rivals the number of deaths from tuberculosis.

Stratification of society into the rich and poor is becoming more wide spread. But it is the differentiation between the poles of global poverty and wealth in post-industrial North and archaic South which is striking most of all. The drop tends to be more rampant. In order to improve the situation threatening the stability of the world system, the United Nations aimed to reduce to half the number of the poor in the world by 2015. It is not a secret that despite numerous international help programs the rich becomes steadily richer and the poor poorer dramatically. It is hard to imagine a society which wouldn’t have poverty at all. It is even harder to rebel against the order in which poverty is a vale of the majority.

In 1970, the world’s rich countries agreed to give 0.7% of their gross national income as official international development aid, annually. Since that time, billions have certainly been given each year, but rarely have the rich nations actually met their promised target. For example, the US is often the largest donor in dollar terms, but ranks amongst the lowest in terms of meeting the stated 0.7% target.

We often hear leaders from rich countries telling poor countries that aid and loans will only be given when they show they are stamping out corruption.

While that definitely needs to happen, the rich countries themselves are often active in the largest forms of corruption in those poor countries, and many economic policies they prescribe have exacerbated the problem.

Corruption in developing countries definitely must be high on the priority lists (and is increasingly becoming so in the wake of the global financial crisis), but so too must it be on the priority lists of rich countries.

There are numerous forms of aid, from humanitarian emergency assistance, to longer term development aid. Some provide food aid, or military assistance, but all these forms of aid seem to be accompanied with criticism, either around inefficiency of delivery, or of political agendas or more.

The global financial collapse was a unique opportunity in America and elsewhere to adjust a mode of economic development and make it more sustainable. Unfortunately, because of general lack of political vision and will from the governments, the process of re-thinking capitalism to finally addressed issues of poverty and social justice in the context of globalization never really took place.