World Issues CPT Essay:Causes of PovertyFelicia PaoloneThursday, January 18, 2017Ara, AharonianCGW 4UPoverty is the state of being extremely poor which is experienced by nearly half of the world’s population. People in developing countries are struggling to survive and live a “normal” life because they are living in poverty.
Poverty affects the people of these countries in a negative way and leaves them with a bad life ahead of them. Children born into poverty are not given the chance to escape since 22,000 of them die each day because of their poor life.1 These people struggle everyday because they are forced to live with getting paid low incomes, lacking food and water, and diseases with no health care. There are various factors that can lead a country into poverty. In developing countries the main causes of poverty are their bad economy, corrupt government, and lack of education. These three aspects are the reason that 3 billion people live in poverty and 1.3 billion live in extreme poverty, with 1 billion of them being children.
2 Poverty is one of the world’s biggest problems and is continuing to grow.If a country has a bad economy it will eventually lead it’s country into poverty. A bad economy causes its country to lack in necessities such as jobs, infrastructure, and climate. If a country is lacking in jobs how are the people supposed to make any money to survive? This is one of the major reasons why these countries are so poor. These people who live in developing countries that are not employed are struggling to make money to support themselves. Every year the unemployment rate increases and its supposed to keep increasing for 2018. In 2017, 16.1 million people were unemployed in developing countries and its supposed to increase to 16.
6 million in 2018. That means that 5.5% of the people that live in developing countries are not employed and are making no source of income. Besides the fact that there are millions of people unemployed even more people are working in poverty wages. In 2016, 69% of people in developing countries are considered to be making “poverty wages” as they make less than $3.10 a day.3 How is someone supposed to live on $3.10 a day? The answer is they struggle to.
These people work so hard to make such little money to barely be able to support their families. 75% of people in developing countries live in poverty because they are either unemployed or making “poverty wages”. The economy is not only bad because of the employment issues, it also struggles because of its lack of infrastructure. Developing countries are not able to further develop themselves because of its lack of infrastructure. In Africa the share of global manufacturing is not proportionate to the amount of people that live there.
As 15% of the world’s population lives in Africa, only 1% of worldwide manufacturing takes place there.4 This is caused because of Africa’s unsuccessful communications, transport, and energy infrastructures. Only 2% of Africa’s rail line cargo capacity is being used since majority of Africa’s goods must be transported by more expensive travels.5 These more expensive ways of traveling are bad for Africa’s economy as they don’t have the extra money to spend, leaving them into further poverty. Also the majority of Africa still experiences regular power outages which is Africa’s biggest infrastructure weak spot.
Over 30 countries in Africa experience daily power outages. How are businesses and factories supposed to run if they will constantly have no power? Therefore in order for Africa to fix their poor infrastructure they must fix their electricity problems. Another big issue that affects developing countries in the world is climate change. Majority of developing countries has nothing to do with the reasons why the world is facing so much climate change but they are the ones who are getting affected by it the most. The poorest countries in the world that are already struggling enough are having to face more problems.
Heat waves are becoming more extreme in high temperature countries as well as longer and more severe droughts in dry heat countries. Waterborne and vector borne diseases are becoming more common in developing countries as everything is contaminated and they simply can’t control their country’s climate.6 With heat waves, droughts, and diseases increasing in developing countries their agriculture is decreasing. Agriculture and farming is very important all countries especially the ones that are still developing.
If they lose their agriculture these countries may never be able to improve their economy. In order for developing countries to help their levels of poverty their economy must be strong. Other than these developing countries needing a strong economy they will also need to be runned by a strong government. Government is what runs a country and leads it into a good state.
The government of developing countries are lacking this, which is why the majority of these countries have corrupt governments. These governments are considered to be “corrupt” because of their violence and terrorism laws, wealth distribution, and health care. If a country doesn’t have a good leader the country will go into corruption.
Sadly, in Africa so many of their countries are crooked because of their terrible leaders. Somalia is considered to be the most “vicious and terrorized” country in all of Africa. Since Somalia’s government and their leaders are so rotten the locals have turned to every form of violence and terrorism. This has caused Somalia to have one of the highest poverty levels in the world. Somalia’s government is so faithless that they allow and accept their people to sell weapons and ammunition for violence and terrorism uses.7 Not only is the government corrupt because of their un involvement with the country’s violence but also with the unfair distribution of wealth.
No countries wealth distribution will ever be equal or fair. Some countries distribution of wealth is unfair to very extreme measures. Equatorial Guinea is a very good example of a leader of a country who will do anything for money. Equatorial Guinea is one of the wealthiest countries in the world topping Italy, Korea, and Saudi Arabia combined. At the same time Equatorial Guinea is one of the most fraudulent countries since its leader has taken bribes that put more than 60% of its population to live in poverty. Majority of their citizens survive off of under $1 a day, barely managing to live.
8 How does a leader of its own country put more than half of its population in poverty? The answer is, for self wealth. On top of the unfair distribution of money these developing countries have little to no healthcare which is strongly needed. 80% of the people living in developing countries strongly rely on health care for survival.9 Small clinics and local “healers” are most commonly turned too but this isn’t always good enough.
In order to get to a decent clinic or a hospital it could take days to get too because most transportation is done by walking. There are no ambulances to call as hospitals don’t have the extra money to spend on gas and vehicles. Majority of people that have medical issues usually don’t do anything about them because the simply can’t afford it or their is nothing locally to help them. On top of the lack of health care, 25% of medicine sold to developed countries are counterfeit and don’t work properly or even at all.10 Since the government in these countries don’t have any sort of health care or benefit programs only the rich can afford to have proper medical attention and real medicine.
Developing countries are in need of a government that has proper leaders that will improve its violence and terrorism laws, distribution of wealth, and its lack of health care. Instead these countries are stuck with the most corrupt leaders leaving them in a lifetime of poverty with no education. Education is the key in order for people to have successful jobs that have a good salary. Without an education people will not know basic knowledge that everyone should be entitled to. Also without an education people are usually stuck with a low paying job and can’t explore the workforce because they don’t have the right school for it. In 2015, 264 million children, youth, and adolescents worldwide did not attend school.
11 Unfortunately in most developing countries children aren’t able to go to school because it isn’t always so easily accessible, families can’t support them, and girls don’t have the rights to attend. 2 out of 5 children in Africa don’t attend school because they have no access to it. Some countries in Africa have as little as 10% of their children getting an education.12 Some of these children don’t attend school because there are no schools close to them. The students who get the privilege to attend school are usually walking. It can take up too 2 hours as their schools can be anywhere from 5-10 km away. If students arrive after 7am they are considered “late”.
The children are punished verbally, could be put to work, or even physically with “11 strokes” by hand.13 Some of these children are pulled out after completing grade 4 or 5 because their families cannot afford school anymore.14 The average cost of education in developing countries is $1.25 per day.15 Their parents cannot afford to send all of their children to school especially when they have 2 or more children. Therefore they have no choice but to pull them out and have them work instead. Majority of these children only study until the age of 10 and then are forced into work by their parents making poverty wages of under $3.
10 a day. Some parents can afford to send their children to school but all the schools are over capacity, as most classes have over 5o students. If you are a female your chances of going to school are even lower. Most girls in developing countries that are given the privilege to go to school leave before they are even teenagers.
This is why two thirds of illiterate people across the globe are females.16 Fathers of these girls pull out their daughters before they turn 13 because they would rather them learn basic skills like sewing and cooking instead of getting a proper education and job. They would also rather them marry young, have children, and let the husband make the money. These women are stuck with no other options other than working low paying jobs or staying at home which puts them into poverty. Education is something all people of all genders should deserve to have until they are at least 18.
Sadly in developing countries this is not the caste, leaving millions of children with no education at all.As 3 billion people worldwide struggle everyday to live in the worst lifestyle known to man. This lifestyle is most commonly known as poverty. Poverty is lightly looked upon the middle and upper class, almost making it not sound bad at all. The people in developing countries living in poverty are there not by choice. These people are born into poverty and can’t get out. A strong economy is what these countries are lacking to help them connect with other countries.
With no available jobs ands bad infrastructure the terrible climate doesn’t help. A well balanced government holds the country together. Unfortunately these developing countries have the exact opposite of a proper government. Their government leaders are selfish with billions of dollars to themselves leaving the majority of their own country in poverty. Since these people are living off poor wages they don’t have enough sufficient funds to send their children to school. Without an education they are basically forced into a life with low paying jobs or for women becoming moms at a young age.
All of these things are what developing countries are heavily lacking putting the majority of the country into poverty and in some cases extreme poverty. Poverty is something that can easily be fixed but will it ever actually happen? Work Cited1 UNICEF. “Committing to Child Survival: A promise renewed.
” 2014. https://www.dosomething.org/us/facts/11-facts-about-global-poverty2 United Nations Development Programme. “Sustaining Human Progress: Reducing Vulnerabilities and Building Resilience.” 2014.
https://www.dosomething.org/us/facts/11-facts-about-global-poverty3 International Labour Organization. “Global unemployment expected to rise by 3.4 million in 2017.” January 2017.
http://embargo.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/WCMS_541128/lang–en/index.htm4 DW. “Poor infrastructure is key obstacle to development in Africa.” July, 26 2011. http://www.dw.
com/en/poor-infrastructure-is-key-obstacle-to-development-in-africa/a-152644365 DW. “Poor infrastructure is key obstacle to development in Africa: The main infrastructure problems.” July, 26 2011. http://www.dw.com/en/poor-infrastructure-is-key-obstacle-to-development-in-africa/a-152644366 PMC. “Climate change and developing country cities: Implications for environment health and equity.
” May 2007 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1891643/7 Chigozie, Emeka. “10 Most corrupt countries in Africa: Somalia.” 2017. https://answersafrica.
com/corrupt-countries-africa.html/28 Chigozie, Emeka. “10 Most corrupt countries in Africa: Equatorial Guinea.” 2017 https://answersafrica.
com/corrupt-countries-africa.html9 Hays, Jeffrey. “Health Care in the developing world (Third World).” January 2012. http://factsanddetails.com/world/cat57/sub381/item2154.
html10 Hays, Jeffrey. “Health Care in the developing world (Third World): Fake Medicine.” January 2012. http://factsanddetails.com/world/cat57/sub381/item2154.html11 World Bank Group. “Out of school Children.” January 2018.
https://www.globalpartnership.org/focus-areas/out-of-school-children12 Shepard, Jessica.
“70 million children get no education, says report.” September, 20 2010. “https://www.
theguardian.com/education/2010/sep/20/70m-get-no-education13 Asante Africa. “How far would you walk to school?” April, 6 2013.
https://asanteafrica.wordpress.com/2013/04/06/how-far-would-you-walk-to-school/14 Van Fleet, Justin.
“Africa’s Education Crisis: In school but not learning.” September 17, 2012. https://www.
brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2012/09/17/africas-education-crisis-in-school-but-not-learning/15 Global Partnership for Education. “Education costs per child.” January 2018. https://www.globalpartnership.
org/funding/education-costs-per-child16 Hays, Jeffrey. “Education in developing countries (Third World): Education and Girls in the developing World.” January 2012. http://factsanddetails.com/world/cat57/sub380/item2155.html
