What is poverty? There are many reasons as to understanding what poverty is and how it works. The statistics can be overwhelming when looked into. A dive into the world bank poverty statistics tells a story of people living under USD1.90 as measured since 1981, with more than 9 out of 10 expected to come from Sub Saharan Africa by 2030. Some of the facts on poverty range from being able to access fresh piped water to simply being able buy a meal on a daily basis. According to compassion.com in 2015, 71% out of a population of 5.2 billion people had access to fresh safe water with this expected to improve over time.
Poverty can thus easily be expressed in numbers, however the cycle of poverty is best explained through its impact as one thing leads to another. A good example is the impact of lack of health. Whilst writing this article the WHO website carried a story that 2 billion people have no access to medicine in 2019. On one hand, people struggle to make money and on the other hand the medicine is not available or too expensive when needed. The loss of life, or the loss of earnings in trying to acquire medical treatment exacerbates poverty. When basic water supplies are not available the result is lost lives, lack of health and poverty goes on. A questions can thus be raised, where does poverty come from?
At the basic level poverty can be noted through inequality. By nature man is violent and has had many wars, a look at the data from ourworldindata shows a world full of conflict which creates a level of inequality. For example the history.com websited estimates that 56 million of of 60 million (90%) people were killed due to colonization in the americas, these being the indigenous people, inequality was thus inevitable. Another estimate from vox.com has 8 million people having been killed from 1885-1908 in Congo by the Belgian King;s (Leopold II) colonization efforts. Considering that this was a time of very little human rights considerations, one can only imagine the number of people who were killed due to untold brutality, slavery and new diseases. The story tells a tale of many different proportions, there is the industrial age told in one dimension but forgets to balance it with the source of labour and raw materials.
Poverty can be argued to be systematic, if you do not have the capital you many not achieve much penetration into the world. There is a world where companies have more money that governments (governments being the sum of the people) or rather companies have turnovers that beat a countries budget ten times over. In the fourth quarter of 2018, Apple posted a revenue of $62.9 billion which was a 20% increase, contrast this with the 2018 Zambian budget of K71.6 billion which translates at today’s rate(June 2019) to just under USD5.7 Billion. The biggest grossing movie in the world as of the end of 2018 was Avatar with USD 2.788 Billion, let that sink in.
Now it easy to blame the politics of the world and the economies of the status quo however poverty is also self perpetuated. If one chooses to remain under a forced system then one will remain poor. The culture of the world has never been about fairness and it has never been about equality. As we write this article racism is still fresh in football and the kick it out campaign is still trying to find a way. The nature or nurture of people will continue to perpetuate all kinds of inequality.
Poverty is a result of a culture, whether you are the recipient of that culture or the enabler of it poverty will always be there. The only way people have become wealthy is by doing “Something”. What that something is depends on your morality, situation and experience, however everyone has a choice.
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