Analyse the Causes of Poverty in the World and Evaluate Attempts to Address it on a Global Scale

Poverty is the state of being extremely poor and being inferior in quality. Nearly half of the world’s population, nearly 3 billion people, live on less than two dollars a day and the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the poorest 48 nations is less than the wealth of the world’s three richest people combined. Poverty can be caused by many issues particularly social and economic reasons. There have been many attempts to address poverty on a global scale and these will be explored.

Firstly, a country’s poverty level is affected by overpopulation and can depend on the population density and its agricultural ability. For example, in
Another economic cause of poverty is the high standards of living and high living costs. In the developing world countries consider themselves doing well if they have productive gardens, some livestock and a house constructed of thatch of mud-brick. Also, in rural areas in developing countries, they have become acclimatised to not having any plumbing, electricity or formal health care. In the modern developed world these are considered hallmarks of poverty. In developed countries there is a high living cost especially in Norway, Switzerland and Australia. Comparatively, other developed countries cannot obtain adequate food, clothing and shelter without ample amounts of money. This includes areas where jobs pay the legal minimum wage and still it is not able to cover the basic expenses. For these people who cannot find or maintain well paid jobs and have no spare income for emergency expenses may rely on the government welfare payments to survive. For many LEDC’s these government welfare schemes may not exist or be able to cope with the large number of people in need of welfare payments that they are considered to be living in impoverished conditions. Therefore, high standards of living and living costs can be considered a cause of poverty.

Attempts have been made to address poverty on a