Poverty has existed for a
very long time, and to different extents it remains
worldwide still now in this 21st century. In primitive
societies it was most often the case that everybody was
equally poor, but more modern societies have generally tended
to involve poverty being confined to an often substantial
minority only - though this can often harm those
concerned even more than universal poverty does.
News. 2012 sees
many countries still in a recession which since 2008 has generally increased poverty. The UN food
agency reported that world food prices in January 2011 reached
their highest level ever recorded - and look like for at least some time to mean hunger for many. And
2012 sees extreme drought famine in East Africa affecting
Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya. 2009 saw richer G20
countries doing £trillion-plus bailouts of their misrun banks,
while charities called for more aid for poor countries to
prevent the economic crisis from destroying more poor people's
lives as poorer countries are being hit by dramatic
declines in trade and foreign investment. But the UN is
now reporting that recent cuts in aid by richer countries and
poor investment practices have been increasing poverty in Africa, and worldwide
now the poor are facing increased hardship. The
present economic downturn also seems to have increased the
abandonment of children and of elderly women in poorer
countries, and to have increased the murder of children and of
elderly women in poorer countries. Often with 'justifications'
that they are witches or devil-possessed, with total annual
numbers estimated to be some millions. see - Victims. And 2010 saw a French government deporting
poor Roma gypsies to a poverty-stricken Romania, while a
new UK Deputy Prime Minister backed the old unhelpful view
that 'poverty affects children little if they have good
parenting'. 2010 also saw many governments pledging to stick
to the UN's Millennium Development Goals to 'halve global
poverty and hunger' by 2015, though progress has reversed for
now and it is not as good a target as it
looks.
One measure of world poverty is given in the
FAO poverty statistics map below - this is a good but slightly
dated measure, you can compare it with the less dated FAO
world poverty map in our Poor in a Rich World section
;
Absolute poverty involves people and
their children having extreme difficulty in merely surviving.
Such poverty at its worst can involve hunger amounting to
starvation, often combined with inadequate shelter or housing
and clothing. Absolute poverty has been common in more
primitive societies, and is still common in many Third World
countries in Africa, Asia and South America especially where
it can afflict the majority of the population.
But many of today's richer societies like
the USA and UK have a poor who are a minority and
suffer relative poverty - which
generally involves the inability to obtain social necessities
available to the majority and is often intensified by social
exclusion. In a society where 90% rely on their own computer
and car, then those who cannot afford these things may
function badly and are poor and may well be ostracised or
socially excluded (unlike someone richer who chooses to not
have such things and may merely be considered
eccentric).
Hence the answer to what is poverty is not
simple, as poverty does come in different forms and extents,
allowing different definitions of poverty, but it is always
harmful to those concerned and especially harmful to children
whose biological development and survival chances can also be
greatly harmed. Poverty itself means misery to the poor and it
also greatly limits their freedom of life choices and makes
them vulnerable to other various nasty forms of
exploitation including child exploitation. Poverty can also
be very harmful to society as a whole, insofar as it
can maintain a divided conflict society where the poorer
conflict with the richer and acceptance of poverty generally
encourages social badness rather than goodness.
Two issues have been preventing most
governments from handling poverty well ;
1. Most governments in both rich and
poor countries do not see poverty-reduction as being any
priority to them, and so do not make much attempt to reduce
poverty. The wider benefits of reducing poverty are not widely
understood.
2. The few governments in rich or poor
countries that do see poverty-reduction as being of some
priority to them, have commonly wasted much of the resources
they use in mistaken attempts at poverty reduction from not
understanding their best policy options for that.
Recently food prices have been rising
worldwide, partly from new Biofuel policies, mostly helping
to worsen global poverty. 2009 has also seen richer
countries hitting a substantial economic downturn that could
make it harder for them to help reduce poverty for some years.
And of course all governments do have other problems to try to
deal with, and also all have some resource limitations that
restrict the actual amount that they can achieve. But
mostly governments could certainly do
better.
In many poorer countries, the current world
recession is also causing family remittances from overseas
workers or migrant workers to fall. As more migrant workers
lose jobs in Western Europe and the USA, remittances to poor
families in Africa, Central Asia and Eastern Europe are
expected to be hardest hit.
The current recession has also badly affected the relative poor in richer countries as the 2012 report about the UK notes below ;
NOTE: As well as looking at
the persisting extent of poverty worldwide, as
shown in world poverty maps, this website also seeks to
seriously examine the various real causes of poverty and
the various real possible solutions to poverty. Better
understanding about poverty issues and poverty statistics are
really needed to help end poverty.
The menu on the left clicks
to give our Poor in a Rich World, Environment Poverty,
Biological Poverty, Economic Poverty, Exploitation Poverty,
Social Poverty, Poverty in Africa, Poverty in Asia, Poverty in
Latin America, Solutions to World Poverty and other sections -
and each carries further poverty information and informative
links to give a wider picture of poverty
worldwide.
OR do a good search of this site, from the
bottom of many of our other site pages !
VincentWilmot+