Poverty Alleviation

By Jared P. Queja, G7 - Fatima

Introduction

Poverty alleviation is one of the six advocacies of St. Mary's Academy Pasay. The other five being justice and peace, ecological integrity, empowered citizenship, gender equality, and youth empowerment. While the other advocacies are important and offer a lot, I chose to cover poverty alleviation since it is a big problem across the world and millions of people are suffering from it.

What is Poverty?

According to Investopedia, poverty is the state or condition in which and individual or community lacks financial and essential resources that are needed for a minimum standard of living. Therefore basic human needs are not met.

People who live in poverty may lack proper housing, clean water, healthy food, access to healthcare, and proper clothing.

For some statistics: 719 million people or 9.2% of the world population live in extreme poverty (Less than $2.15 a day), 1.9 billion or 24% of the world population live in fragile contexts, and 1.2 billion people or 19% live in multidimensional poverty. 

 What causes Poverty?

Poverty can be determined by socioeconomic status, ethnicity, gender, and geography, while other root causes include unemployment, poor infrastructure, conflict and war, cost of living, social barriers, and government incompetence. However some people fall into poverty because of health problems such as addictions, depression, and other mental health illnesses. 

 Wealth Gap: Rich vs Poor

Here in our country, the poverty rate fell from 49% in 1985 to 17% in 2018, a 65% decrease according to the World Bank. Owing to  expansion of secondary education, falling unemployment, adn government welfare. However despite this, the rich, or the top 1% of the Philippine population , still possess 17% of our country's income which is larger than the 14% of the bottom 50% of the population. Of course despite massive improvements over the couple decades, the wealth gap between the rich and poor remains too large and therefore the government should do more to combat this. 

On a global scale the world does worse as the top one percent of the population control 38% of wealth and the bottom half of the world population only control 9% of world wealth!

How can we alleviate Poverty?

On a personal level one can help alleviate poverty by merely donating to charity or participating in a volunteer program. However that isn't enough. Government intervention is one way of reducing poverty in the world. Governments should focus on welfare programs for their citizens and improving social services and infrastructure. However some argue that private organizations should lead the effort since governments are corrupt and incompetent. While both options do help, governments wield more power than private organizations.

Conclusion

In conclusion, over 50% of the world population live in poverty, or the lack of essential resources needed for the human standard of living. While the causes of poverty are many, the solutions are few and simple. Governments should be doing more to alleviate poverty across the world. However we ourselves can do an impact even if it is small. Charity and volunteerism are still ways where we could help and I highly encourage it.

 

 

 References:

Article title: What's Poverty? Meaning, Causes, and How to Measure
URL: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/poverty.asp
Website title: Investopedia
Date accessed: April 10, 2023
Date published:  March 27, 2023

Article title: PHILIPPINES: Reducing Inequality Key to Becoming a Middle-Class Society Free of Poverty
URL: https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2022/11/24/ph-reducing-inequality-key-to-becoming-a-middle-class-society-free-of-poverty#:~:text=Yet%20inequality%20remains%20high%3A%20the,by%20the%20bottom%2050%20percent.
Website title: World Bank
Date accessed: April 10, 2023
Date published:  N/A

Article title: Global Inequalities
URL: https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2022/03/Global-inequalities-Stanley#:~:text=The%20richest%2010%20percent%20today,dioxide%20emissions%20by%20income%20category.
Website title: IMF
Date accessed: April 10, 2023
Date published:  March 01, 2022 

Article title: Global poverty: Facts, FAQs, and how to help
URL: https://www.worldvision.org/sponsorship-news-stories/global-poverty-facts#:~:text=BACK%20TO%20QUESTIONS-,How%20many%20people%20live%20in%20poverty%20around%20the%20world%3F,in%20poverty%20as%20of%202021.
Website title: World Vision
Date accessed: April 10, 2023
Date published:  April 05, 2023