INTRODUCTION
In the global economy, issues of poverty has for some time been at the centre of developmental goal of nations. The poor nations are eager to come out of poverty; the rich nations are evolving welfare strategies to improve the quality of life of their people. Poverty has been defined in many ways by several scholars, but what seems to be a general consensus is that poverty is a multidimensional phenomenon. According to (Narayan and Petesch 2002) Poverty is regarded as lack of financial capability to obtain basic need of life such as food, cloth, shelter as well as lack of access to education, health care and security. While some school of thought mirror poverty from absolute perspective and conclude that it is possible to define the basic needs of the generic individual regardless of one’s physical location in the world based on the minimum standard of living and one’s physiological needs for water, clothing and shelter(Satterthwaite 2003). Others have conceived poverty in the relative term in relation to a generally accepted standard of living in a specific society at a specific time(Gray and Moseley 2005). The various views of poverty by different scholars is seen on the basis of development of various economies but in this discuss, focus will be on chronic micro poverty of individual and household and how they persist in developing countries (Nigeria). Chronic micro poverty includes individual and household within the society who have minimal or no prospect for economic and social mobility and are structurally constrained by the social relations which produce poverty effects. (Mitlin 2003)
MICRO CAUSES OF POVERTY
There are many causes of poverty while some are cultural others are political. Most micro economi...
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Although poverty has minimized, it is still significant poverty which is characterized by a numerous amount of things. There are two types of poverty case and insular. “Case poverty is the farm family with the junk-filled yard and the dirty children playing in the bare dirt” (Galbraith 236)Case poverty is not irretraceable and usually caused if someone in the household experiences “ mental deficiency, bad health, inability to adapt to the discipline of industrial life, uncontrollable procreation, alcohol, some educational handicap unrelated to community shortcomings” (Galbraith 236).Case poverty is often blamed on the people for their shortcomings but on some levels can be to pinpoint one person's shortcomings that caused this poverty. Most modern poverty is insular and is caused by things people in this community cannot control. “The most important characteristic of insular poverty is forces, common to all members of the community, that restrain or prevent participation in economic life and increase rates of return.
Poverty is not just an issue reserved for third world countries. Instead, poverty is a multifaceted issue that even the most developed nations must battle
United Nations Development Programme. Poverty Reduction and UNDP. New York: United Nations Development Programme, Jan. 2013. PDF.
Over one billion people are living in poverty, lacking safe water, housing, food, and the ability to read. There is a high concentration of communities in poverty in Africa; particularly Central Africa. States that are considered in Central Africa are the following: Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central Republic of Africa, Chad, Equatorial Guinea and the Congo. The majority of these Central African states’ economies are dependent on agriculture. As a result of this dependency, natural disasters, droughts and wars can displace subsistence farmer from their land resulting in poverty becoming even more prevalent and harder to come back from. Also with a history of dependency on farming there tends to be the trend of education not being a primary focus for the youth which is another factor into the stagnant poverty trend in Central Africa.
Despite the numerous wealth generated on a daily basis from oil exportation over the years and the vast amount of untapped resources laying in commercial quantity, the country does not have a single or recognize means of directly addressing the welfare of its citizenry. Only the present democratic administration has promised to execute out a compulsory cash transfer of N5,000 to the poorest 25 million Nigeria (based on some conditions), pay graduating corp members some stipends for a year and design a one-meal a day for public primary school
The overriding challenge Uganda faces today is the curse of poverty. Poverty, ‘the lack of something”(“Poverty.”), something can be materials, knowledge, or anything one justifies as necessary to living. Associated with poverty is the question of what causes poverty and how to stop poverty? The poverty rate in Uganda has declined from the year 2002 from the year 2009, which shows the percent of residents living in poverty has decreasing. Yet, the year is 2014 and the poverty rate could have drastically changed over the course of five years. One could assume the poverty rate would continue to decrease, which would be astounding and beneficial, but does poverty ever decrease enough to an acceptable level or even nonexistence? Poverty is a complex issue that continues to puzzle people from all across the globe. Poverty could possible be a question that is never truly answered.
The question to be answered in this paper is to what extent has the resource curse affected the Nigerian economy and government? Resource curse is a term that states the observation that countries that have a plethora of natural resources (e.g. oil, coal, diamonds etc.). usually have unstable political and economic structures (Sachs, 827). Nigeria is categorized as a nation that has succumbed to the resource curse as it has an abundance of, and an overdependence on, oil, and a decreasing gross domestic product (GDP) (Samuels, 321-322). Nigeria is known for its specialization and overdependence on oil and according to Ross, nations of such nature tend to have high levels of poverty, large class gaps, weak educational systems, more corruption within the government, and are less likely to become democracies (Ross, 356).
There are many causes of poverty, starting with corruption. Corruption is a deceptive conduct by those in power who try to keep those who are in poverty trapped within their situations. When people think of corruption, they think of politics and rich leaders. Leaders from wealthy countries tell those who are already in poverty about loans and aid that they can offer. The less fortunate, not very aware of what they put themselves in are building a deeper hole with debt. The leaders from those wealthy countries are making more money also by taxing the less fortunate and receiving the money that they loaned to them. Those who are already poor try hard to provide for their families with the money they make from their jobs. Many of them lack education so it is hard to have well-paying jobs. “Poverty is the state for the majority of the world’s people and nations. Why is this? Is it enough to blame poor people for their own predicament?” (“Causes of Poverty” 5) Therefore, corruption is one cause of poverty.
African nations regularly fall to the bottom of any list measuring economic activity, such as per capita income or per capita GDP, despite a wealth of natural resources. The bottom 25 spots of the United Nations (UN) quality of life index are regularly filled by African nations. In 2006, 34 of the 50 nations on the UN list of least developed countries are in Africa. In many nations, the per capita income is often less than $200 U.S. per year, with the vast majority of the population living on much less. In addition, Africa's share of income has been consistently dropping over the past century by any measure. In 1820, the average European worker earned about three times what the average African did. Now, the average European earns twenty times what the average African does. Although per capita incomes in Africa have also been steadily growing, and poverty falling, measures are still far better in other parts of the world, such as Latin America, which suffers from many of the same disadvantages that Africa has.
Growth in Africa is not enough for its people to grow, which is leading to poverty and hunger in Africa. Today Africa is one of the leading countries having poverty and economic problems. One half of the Africans live below the poverty line which leads to low human development in Africa. The main cause of poverty in Africa is a problem in its economic system and environmental factors. Because of poverty people of Africa remain hungry as they don’t have enough money to buy their food and their basic needs. Some of the African countries have less poverty rate than others due to good government and economic system in those countries. Most of the African is facing challenges to survive and keep their family healthy.
As one of the biggest problems facing the world today, poverty continues to have significant negative implications for the society. The effects of poverty are extremely severe and far-reaching, so much so that it was one of the top Millennium Development Goals agreed upon at the Millennium Summit of the UN back in 2000 (Hatcher, 2016). To understand the effects that poverty has on the society, one must critically analyze the societies in which poverty is rampant, as well as analyze poverty from the relative perspectives that it presents. The core aim of this paper is to develop a holistic understanding of poverty and elaborate on the diverse ways in which it continues to affect societies across the world.
Poverty is generally defined as a state of deprivation in well-being. The conventional perspective connects well-being basically to control over commodities, so the poor are individuals who do not have sufficient income or consumption to place them above some adequate bare minimum threshold (Lyman et al, 2004). Poverty is also tied to a particular type of consumption, for instance people may be considered health poor, house poor or food poor. The poverty dimensions can often be determined directly. For instance it can be measured by assessing malnutrition or levels of literacy (Alla...
"Causes and Effects of Poverty." Cliffs Notes. Cliffs Notes, n.d. Web. 27 Nov 2013. .
NIGERIA AND THE PATH OF ECONOMIC PROSPERITY. Economic development is a term that economists, politicians, and others have used frequently since the 20th Century. The concept, however, has been in existence in the West for centuries. The term refers to economic growth accompanied by changes in output distribution and economic structure. It is concerned with quality improvements, the introduction of new goods and services, risk mitigation and the dynamics of innovation and entrepreneurship.
Poverty is an issue dealt with throughout the world, but we are not all aware of its conditions. Poverty is a very serious problem around the world. Poverty is defined as the equality of poorness and impoverishment -- (the state of having little or no money and few or no material possessions). A question to ask ourselves is: “Should poverty be defined strictly in terms of monetary income, as opposed to some qualitative formula which takes into consideration styles of life as well as material possessions?” (Sheppard 13) Because there are so many different ways we can express the term poverty, maybe there should be a certain way we can determine poverty worldwide?