...Topic: Poverty in Africa; Causes, Solutions and the Future Maxwell Adjei adjeimax89@gmail.com 1 Table of Content Page Number Introduction; Background of Poverty in Africa............................................................................3 What are the causes of Poverty in Africa......................................................................................4-5 a. Corruption- Bad Leadership and Weak Institutions...........................................,,.....5-6 b. Conflicts.....................................................................................................................6-7 c. Unfavourable Trade Policies- Weak Economies.......................................................7-8 Are there any possible solutions.................................................................................................8-9 a. Tackling Corruption- Strong Institutions and Good Governance..........................9-11 b. Building Infrastructure, Sound Economic Policies and Regional Integration.....11-15 c. Effective Management of Intractable Conflicts...................................................15-16 Conclusion....................................................................................................................................16 References.....................................................................................................................................17 2 Introduction Africa as a continent...
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...[Name] [Course Title] [Instructor Name] [Date] Write a research paper on Poverty in Africa. Describe how/in what way it is such a big problem in the world, possible causes and possible solutions in which you think these problems can be solved. Contents Abstract 3 Introduction: 4 Overview of poverty in Africa: 4 Facts about poverty in Africa: 5 Graph: 6 Causes of poverty in Africa: 7 1. Corruption and Poor Governance: 7 a) Unbalanced Economic Systems: 7 2. Environment: 8 3. Poor Utilization of Land: 8 4. Increase in Population: 9 5. Diseases and poor health facilities: 10 Solutions to overcome poverty: 10 1. Overcoming government failure: 10 2. Education: 11 3. Population control 11 4. Focus on agriculture: 12 5. Other possible solutions: 12 References: 13 Abstract This paper will provide a deep insight into the problems of poor people and their causes of poverty. Other than that solutions to their issues regarding the government and basic necessities of live will be focused upon. The deprivation of services for the poor is another noticeable point in the paper. Introduction: Poor people are poor because of many reasons, but they remain poor because market and government does not support them. When capital markets fail, youth is unable to get loans to finance their education, they are not capable of maintaining their health and most importantly the government is unable to provide them with basic services and...
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...Poverty: An African Crisis Today, 300 million African people live on less than $1 US per day (World Bank). The incidence of extreme poverty never seems to go down, despite decades of work by African governments and NGOs, outside NGOs, and foreign government aid programs. What causes this entrenched poverty, on a continent rich with natural resources? Unfortunately, poverty in Africa doesn't result from just one or two causes. There are a number of different factors at work, all interacting with one another, and making the problem of entrenched poverty extremely difficult to solve. Some of the major causes of poverty include: war and armed conflict, poor farm policy, lack of access to credit, rampant unemployment, lack of access to education, and disease. One-fifth of all African people live in countries seriously disrupted by armed conflict (World Bank). When war is ranging all around, it's very difficult to grow crops, continue to work in an office, or earn money. Ordinary life becomes impossible, as people are forced to flee their homes. Thus, productivity goes down, and poverty rates shoot up. Countries at war produce an average of 12.5 per cent less food per person than they do during peace time (World Bank). One example is Angola, where a 27-year long civil war killed half a million people and left 3.8 million people displaced (Szczepanski). Virtually all the country's infrastructure was destroyed in the conflict, and more than three-quarters of the population fell into...
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...Burkina Faso: Understanding the Issues in Poverty and Natural Resources MIDN 2/C Alexandria Thomas Professor Lewis FP366 Section 6001 I. INTRODUCTION “On the strength of one link in the cable, Dependeth the might of the chain, Who knows when thou mayest be tested? So live that thou bearest the strain.” This powerful law, written by Admiral Ronald Hopwood , was created to act as a moral basis for the members of Britain’s Royal Navy to live by. As time went on, many navies and other military forces have embodied this law and have applied it to many aspects in life, especially in international relations. If one country is failing, then its allies and surrounding nations are failing as well. Burkina Faso currently has the world’s...
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...Causes of Poverty Sociology/100 Carolyn Howard, Tayisha Green, Guy Scott March 14, 2013 Dr. Adrian Woods Causes of Poverty Poverty and hunger are the most serious problem in Africa. On TV, newspapers, journals, and radio, the world witnesses thousands of people in Africa starving. In the 80s the media brought the picture of hunger from Africa starving children’s, skin and bone with bloated bellies, too weak to even stand up. (Warnock p.1) whereas people living across the countries are enjoying different kinds of tasty meals and trashing the food they do not want or like. Africa is one of the poorest countries in the world. People are dying because of lack in basic human needs. The people in Africa cannot even afford the basic things as food and soap. The Gross Domestic Product projected in Africa is says to be less than two hundred dollars. Here 20 years later, the issue is still hunger in Africa and other undeveloped countries. According to Washington, March 16 (IPS) The world’s food security remains ‘vulnerable,” new data suggests with some 870 million people experiencing sustained hunger and two billion suffering from micronutrient deficiencies. The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) is unhappy with this figure, and warns that the program set-up to fix the problem is just a piecemeal solution. The IFPRI Global Food Policy Report for 2012 findings is disappointing. The report found that the proportion of people suffering from hunger...
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...Definition of poverty CHUPICAL SHOLLAH MANUEL Poverty as a phenomenon is very elusive to define and is rather multidimensional and a contested concept whose definition is influenced by the contexts in which it exists. The concept has both a relative an absolute measure. The dominant Western definition since World War II has defined poverty in monetary terms, using levels of income or consumption to measure poverty (Grusky and Kanbur, 2006: 11) and defining the poor by a headcount of those who fall below a given income/consumption level or ‘poverty line’ (Lipton and Ravallion, 1993: 1 in Handley et al., 2009). Multidimensional definitions acknowledge that poverty is also defined by a sense of helplessness, dependence and lack of opportunities, self-confidence and self-respect on the part of the poor. (Narayan et al., 2000). Sen (1999) defines poverty as lack of freedom while another dimension view it as interlinked forms of deprivation in the economic, human, political, sociocultural and protective spheres (OECD, 2006).This essay discusses the issue of poverty in Africa from colonial period to present day. The paper also analyses the causes of poverty since colonial era, the poverty alleviation strategies adopted to deal with poverty and propose possible solutions for poverty alleviation. A plethora of case studies will be drawn from several countries to substantiate the claims and insights provides in this paper. 2.0 Poverty, colonialism and Colonial Legacy Poverty is attributed...
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...David Turks Burke-8 American Lit May 3, 2013 Child Soldiers What accounts for the phenomenon of child soldiers in Africa? The primary cause contributing to the recruitment of child soldiers in Africa is poverty. While other factors such as ‘war’ itself, proliferation of small arms, lack of education, displacement all inevitably lead to child soldier recruitment, it is however poverty at the root of these circumstances. Therefore this essay shall argue this case by examining how Africa has come to have such high levels of poverty and by showing the association between other factors and that of poverty. To establish what is meant by the term ‘child soldier’ it must first be defined and a brief description offered that explains the recruitment practices used. This in turn allows the reader to better comprehend the devastating outcomes when underlying causes such as extreme poverty are not addressed. Subsequently this essay examines the factors that account for the phenomenon of child soldiers in Africa and through this examination of causal factors it will become apparent that poverty is a recurring theme. Once it has been established that poverty is indeed the major cause of child soldier recruitment attention is then given to what is being done to stop it. Finally consideration must be given to the problems that arise when addressing the issues of disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of the child soldier back into the community, to avoid a replication of the...
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...Africa is a continent that is filled with corruption. This corruption lead to the allowance of exploitation of the African people, decreasing their quality of life. The exploitation and corruption occurred in the workplace, wages, political systems, and more. This causes many issues in the continent such as poverty, and illness. This corruption shows that people are willing to exploit others in order to make profits, but that people will always fight against the exploitation to better their communities lives. It also shows that Africans were dehumanized in the process to exploit them to the extent that occurred. This dehumanization of Africans affects how they are treated, and has been hard to reverse the effects. Their efforts to better Africa shows that human spirit is hard to break, and that a change needs unity in a community. Africa is filled with corruption that has had many causes...
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...Poverty is a global phenomenon affecting every country. According the United Nations, poverty is the inability to seek basic needs such as food, clothing and shelter based on the incapability of not having enough money. However, it is not all about the inability to seek basic needs but beyond that. “It is about the denial of opportunities and choices that are widely regarded as essential to lead a long, healthy, creative life and to enjoy a decent standard of living, freedom, dignity, self-esteem and the respect of others” (United Nations- Global Teaching and Learning Project, 2014, 1). Poverty makes other major problems worse including slave labour, human trafficking and the spread of diseases. However, the root cause of these global issues is the relationship between poverty and the lack of education. The big question is whether increased education will reduce poverty or, is a lack of education a result of poverty? Increased education can lead to the reduction of poverty by providing people with learning skills to get a job and provide a source of income. Education has the most crucial role in eliminating poverty as with education there are many more opportunities. For the eradication of poverty, primary education is essential because with the increase in education, people will not lack cognitive skills- being able to progress better. (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, 2001; Brown, J., Pollitt, E. Malnutrition, 1996). A counter argument is...
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...the society can address pressing issues of poverty. The MDGs are made up of eight major objectives, which are all related to global development. In 2000, 189 world leaders signed a Millennium Declaration. The leaders set 2015 as the deadline for achieving the set MDGs. There has been a mixed result of the progress towards attaining these goals. One of the major achievements has been achieved is that there has been a major reduction of people living in extreme poverty. Accordingly, the proportion of poverty fell to less than one fifth from nearly a third between 1990 and 2004. However, the results are not consistent throughout the world. For instance, the sub-Saharan Africa has not been able to meet any of the set targets. On the contrary, there has been a significant economic growth in some parts of Asia, especially, the Eastern part. The following is a summary of the progress that has been made so far based on the 2007 Millennium Goals Report. Extreme Poverty The percentage of people living in extreme poverty fell to 19% in 2004 from nearly a third in 2004. If this trend can continue for a long time, there is likelihood that the MDG will meet its target of halving those living on less than 1 dollar per day. As already noted, the progress towards this goal has been inconsistent throughout the world. Indeed, most of the progress in poverty reduction is attributed to the economic gains in East and Southeast Asia. The sub-Saharan Africa remains the poorest region with most people...
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...AFRICAN POVERTY Duncan Kennedy* Abstract: African extreme poverty is probably a function (although not solely) of the balkanized post-colonial geopolitics of Africa. It is also probably a function (although not solely) of the income distribution generated by a typically perverse African political economy, through its effect on the allocation of resources to development. As between these two causes, the second is probably much the more important. This reinterpretation puts considerably more of the blame for African poverty on the Western great powers than does the “poverty trap” analytic that is a common contemporary way of thinking about the African economic situation. INTRODUCTION This essay, which really is an essay rather than a sustained scholarly encounter with the problem, proposes an alternative to the “poverty trap” analytic for understanding extreme poverty in sub-Saharan Africa. The poverty-trap idea is well instantiated by the following quotation from Jeffrey and Lisa Sachs, and it is common among liberal Western commentators on African economy. For the world’s poorest people, daily life is a struggle for survival, with millions of impoverished people each year losing that struggle to famine, disease, environmental catastrophes, and violent conflicts that arise in conditions of extreme deprivation. . . . One basic point, not always remembered, is that impoverished countries lack their own budgetary resources needed to supply vital—indeed life-saving—services such...
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...Conflicts in Africa Terrell Campbell English 103 Professor Duguay March 31, 2015 Despising the decades of conflict, death and tragedy, coverage of issues in Africa has often been ignored, overgeneralized, or unreasonably focused on limited aspects. There is a deeper analysis, background and context that has often been lacking, so regardless of what seems like constant images of starving children in scarcities, news of billions in aid to Africa from generous donor countries, the background context and analysis is often missing. Whether aid makes the situation worse, or why there is scarcity and hunger in Africa when African nations are exporting crops to other parts of the world are rarely asked by the mainstream. Why is Africa so violent? There is a reason why some of Africa’s bloodiest, and brutal wars never seem to end is because they’re not really wars. Not in the traditional sense, at least. The soldiers don’t have much of an ideology, not much of a clear goal. They couldn’t care less about taking over capitals or major cities — in fact, they prefer the deep bush, where it is far easier to commit crimes. Today’s rebels seem especially uninterested in winning converts, content instead to steal other people’s children, stick axes in their hands, and make them do the killing. Most of today’s African fighters are not rebels with a cause, but predators. That’s why there are stunning slaughters like eastern Congo’s rape epidemic, where armed groups in recent years have...
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...David Lew Qingwei Rachel Crumpler Business and its Publics: Section 29 May 12, 2013 TOMS Shoes and the Effective Creation of Shared Value Over the last 30 years, absolute poverty worldwide has fallen 20%, yet poverty levels in Africa have remained static, hovering around 40% of the continent’s population over the same time period (“Poverty”). Poverty is endemic to many developing nations in Africa, and many attempts have been made to ameliorate the socio-economic toll that it wreaks on the region. However, the continued predominance of poverty in the region today makes it clear that previous attempts at traditional poverty eradication have failed. More recently, the rise of social entrepreneurship has revitalized the discussion about poverty alleviation, with companies committing themselves to creating transformational benefit for the disadvantaged segments of society (Martin 151). TOMS Shoes is such a company that has made a commitment to social responsibility. Unfortunately, TOMS and its footwear draws a great deal of criticism, and there is mounting evidence that creating shared value, as seen in Oliberté Footwear’s business model, is a more effective route to poverty alleviation. Ultimately, we must carefully consider the advantages of Oliberté’s shared value over TOMS’ social responsibility, and call for future social business models to take note of what both of these social enterprises do right and wrong to create the best solution for bringing upward social mobility...
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...this research is to explain more about the subject that was chosen and to get informed about what is happening and what is being done about it. The global issue that was chosen is Poverty. Poverty is known as the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions. The method used in this report is a secondary research. The most used method in this research was the Internet. There are many factors that cause people to live in poverty; some of them are low paid work, the fact of having no job, and inadequate benefits. The consequences of poverty can be social or political; a very distinguished one is death. A lot of people die every day because of hunger, and there are some organizations helping the poverty problem disappear as soon as possible. The most affected generations related to this problem are children. Putting more job opportunities could be very helpful to help this problem, getting volunteers to do social service in the most needed communities and sending some medicines with them so they can help as much as possible. 1.0 Introduction The purpose of this research is to explain more about the subject that was chosen and to get informed about what is happening and what is being done about it. The chosen aspect is poverty, specifically hunger. Poverty is known as “the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions.” (Merriam Webster, 2015) Hunger is having a desire, craving, or need...
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...Name: College: Course: Tutor: Date: Poverty in Small countries in Africa and the Roll of Corruption The major cause and reason for poverty around the globe is corruption. Unfortunately corruption occurs at all levels of every society, from national to local governments, judiciary functions, civil society military, small and large businesses and other services and so on (www.globalissues.org). The poorest countries are mostly affected by corruption despite it being in almost all nations. Political development is undermined by corruption since all aspects of society are somewhat affected (www.globalissues.org). It is not fundamentally useful to make collective differences between corruptions in several parts of the globe. In the end it all comes down to the same thing the abuse or use of public office and resources for private gain. However, corruption can be split into grand corruption, petty corruption and looting (unpan1.un.org). Petty corruption is a situation where small gifts and small amounts of money change hands. The parties involved are relatively minor officials within an organization where the transaction took place. An example is paying a policeman a dollar to look the other way after doing a minor infraction (unpan1.un.org). Grand corruption is a situation whereby a businessman and a senior ranking government official, and the figures exchanging hand are significant. A good example is the kickback received after government tenders or contracts are awarded. ...
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