Combating+Poverty

Summery of Topic

Poverty includes hunger, lack of shelter, lack of health care, not having access to school and being illiterate. Poverty is powerlessness, lack of representation and freedom. All of these problems, which are caused by poverty, are still unsolved.

A common measure of poverty is income. A person is considered poor if their income falls below some minimum necessary to meet basic needs. This minimum is called the poverty line. For many poor people, living below the poverty line means they lack access to food, water, shelter, education and health care. The income of poor people varies by country and region but is invariably less than what is necessary to make ends meet.

In order to compare poverty levels worldwide, the World Bank defines extreme poverty as living on less than $1 a day, and moderate poverty as less than $2 a day.

The causes of poverty are complex and controversial and much has been written to explain its existence. Geography, ineffective government institutions, poor economic policies, a lack of investment in human capital and infrastructure, the absence of democracy and markets, government regulation and political unrest have been cited as possible causes.

In 2001, the World Bank estimated that 1.2 billion people lived on less that $1 a day and 2.7 billion people lived on less than $2 a day. This means that roughly half of the 6 billion people on this planet are poor.



At least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day And also the increasingly gap between the wealthy and the poor have stimulated social disorder, since the poorest 40 percent of the world’s population accounts for 5 percent of global income. The richest 20 percent accounts for three-quarters of world income.

Other Statistics on the Share of the World's Consumption, 2005



The poorest 10% accounted for just 0.5% and the wealthiest 10% accounted for 59% of all the consumption

The effects of poverty are wide ranging and can perhaps be best illustrated by the following statistics:

- More than 800 million people go to bed hungry every day; 300 million are children. Of these 300 million children, more than 90 percent suffer long-term malnourishment and micronutrient deficiency - More than 2.6 billion people- over 40 percent of the world’s population- do not have basic sanitation, and more than one billion people still use unsafe sources of drinking water - Each year, approximately 300 to 500 million people are infected with malaria. Approximately 3 million people die as a result Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names.

Poverty reduction is a central feature of the international development agenda. A number of key social development objectives were agreed by world leaders at the Millennium Summit, with the goal of significantly reducing poverty by 2015.