The History and Future of Poverty

To understand our current sins of earth-savaging, overconsuming, and overpopulating, we

have to look at facts that are, like the sun, too painful for our direct gaze. Instinctively we look

away.

Poverty

"The poverty of the poor is their ruin," says the Book of Proverbs. And the ruin is not just

material. Poverty rapes and kills the spirit of the poor. We underestimate its complexity and

cruelty. There are four dimensions of poverty:

(1) Material limit. Poverty does mean a lack of material necessities. For the one billion people in

"absolute poverty," the most basic essentials are critically lacking and death is fastening its grip on

them. Note, too, that fewer than 3 billion people could eat as we eat, i.e. on a North American

diet. We are almost 3 billion beyond that now. Limits have already been passed.

(2) Poverty strips the human spirit of its two indispensable prerequisites, the two things we cannot

do without. They are, I submit, respect and hope. The opposite of respect is insult and, as

Aristotle said, insult is the root of all rebellion. Respect is the recognition that our humanity is

valued at its worth, that others recognize that humanity is a shared glory and our possession of it

is acknowledged. Poverty turns the goodness of the world into a taunt for it denies the poor the

ecstasy of life that is their birthright. It is galling and killing to be so disvalued.

Insult is treatment that implicitly denies that we matter. African-Americans in the United States,

for example, eat insult with their daily bread. As law professor Derrick Bell says, there is no white

person in this country who at some level does not think blacks to be inferior, and there is no black

person who does not know that and resent it. Given the persistent record, the same could be said

for the often subterranean but ever active belief of men that women are inferior and that their

disempowerment is the law of nature. Women have noticed this and felt the stigmatizing pain. The

result is called feminism and its success is the last best hope for our bi-gendered species.

Hope is also best described by its opposite. Its opposite is paralysis. Only hope activates the

human will. Only possible good motors our affections and stirs us to action. Without hope, we are

catatonic. Even Sisyphus had to be hoping for something or he would have left tha...

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Sources: UNESCO; UNICEF.

This map does not reflect a position by UNICEF on the legal status of any country or territory or

the delimitation of any frontiers. Dotted line represents approximately the Line of Control in

Jammu and Kashmir agreed upon by India and Pakistan. The final status of Jammu and Kashmir

has not yet been agreed upon by the parties.

Women‘s status and children‘s status are inextricably linked.

Women‘s literacy rates – a proxy for their empowerment and advancement – are key to improving

the health, nutrition and education of families and children.

Malnourished girls often grow into undernourished mothers, in turn more likely to give birth to

low- birthweight infants.

Approximately 15 million girls aged 15–19 give birth every year, accounting for more than 10%

of all babies born worldwide. The risk of death from pregnancy-related causes is four times higher

in this age group than for women older than 20.

Skilled prenatal and delivery care plays a major role in reducing maternal mortality and morbidity.

Violence against women is often equivalent to violence against children.