Analyse the Causes of Poverty in the World, Especially in the Area of Sub-Saharan Africa and Evaluate Attempts to Address It on a Global Scale (40 Marks).

Nadya Wigglesworth

 25/11/2014

Analyse the causes of poverty in the world, especially in the area of Sub-Saharan Africa and evaluate attempts to address it on a global scale (40 marks).

Poverty, a term that’s separated into three sections: relative, moderate and extreme, can be found in all corners of the globe, every country has a degree of poverty which is a result of a number of integrated elements, some generated internally and others emanating externally. Statistics indicate LEDC’s tend to have higher rates of poverty than MEDC’s, caused by a mixture of problems ranging from corrupt governments to the accessibility of education and gender inequality. More specifically still, Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has been found to be the poorest region in the world with 46.8%, nearly half of the population, living on less than $1.25 a day- therefore classified as being in ‘absolute/extreme poverty’. Efforts to reduce the problem of global poverty have been put in place by organisations such as the World Bank and the IMF which are globally influential, many non-profit organisations such as ‘ONE’ and ‘Oxfam’ also make their primary goal the reduction of poverty rates. However, with global poverty being a large scale current concern and the unlikelihood that millennium goal number 1- ‘eradicate extreme poverty and hunger’ will be reached by 2015, puts in question the attempts to address the problem of poverty. Therefore in this essay I will discuss the initial causes of poverty, primarily focusing on Sub-Saharan Africa, and evaluate the variety of attempts that have been, and are planned to be put in place to address such a large scale problem.

The internal causes of poverty are those that arise from inside the country itself; governments, civil wars, laws, infrastructure, corruption, are all influential. Governing a country successfully in essential in keeping poverty low, when the majority of countries in Sub-Saharan Africa became independent in the 1960’s, their governments felt ready to handle and stabilize their economy and quickly expanded. By the 1970’s the economies of most Sub-Saharan countries’ has fallen primarily due to global recession and following this, global inflation which left SSA in debt to other countries so they could provide for their own people. The financially inept situation SSA was in led to many governmental regulations becoming increasingly restrictive; initiating the start of the decrease of living standards, declining employment opportunities, and dreams of development disappeared, the governments’ only option to pay off the expenses was to borrow money from foreign countries. In the mid-80’s the economic crisis came to its highest point as the continent was overwhelmed with drought and famine along with increasing debt, this led to government cuts to most of the social service programs and the budget for education and health care. These were the circumstances which initiated such poverty in SSA, resulting in it being extremely difficult for countries to become self-sufficient. Zambia gained independence in 1964, soon after the price of copper dropped (which was the country’s main revenue) causing a huge loss of capital and GNP to plummet, Zambia as a result had to borrow money adding debt to the already economically distraught country, the president (Kenneth Kaunda) also denied help from any external sources resulting in debt increasing further diverting money away from education, health care, infrastructure which was initially why Zambia became a country which the majority of the population lived in extreme poverty.