The Pledge to Eliminate Poverty
As Hite and Seitz (2016) discuss in Chapter 2: Wealth and Poverty, the Millennium Development Goals were created to provide developing countries support through the partnership of developed countries. The first goal is to “eradicate extreme poverty and hunger” in the world.
According to this, the population is still increasing in the world’s poorest regions. Take a look at the Millennium Development Goals report (https://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/2015_MDG_Report/pdf/MDG%202015%20rev%20(July%201).pdf).
The report notes that progress in reducing extreme hunger is uneven across regions and countries. Looking at the graph on page 14 of the report, which countries have the least reduction in extreme hunger? Which countries have the greatest reduction in extreme hunger? What factors contribute to this uneven progress? What are some possible strategies for creating more progress in these countries?
Review to this post of your classmates and respond, offering a substantive comment on that classmate’s position on the issue(s).
According to the Millennium Development Goals report, reducing extreme hunger has been a major goal. For regions classified as extreme poverty, people must be living on less than $1.25 per day, which equates to under $40.00 a month! Most people spend more than that on one meal out. The two regions that had the least amount of drop in extreme hungry is the Sub-Saharan African which only dropped 28% and Western Asia which dropped by 46%. The two regions that had the biggest drops in extreme poverty was China with a 94% drop and South-Eastern Asia with an 84% drop.
Several factors contributed to uneven progress in reducing extreme poverty. These factors are as follows: sex, age, disability, ethnicity, and geographic location. Women remain discriminated against and this is a major cause of uneven progress and keeps them in poverty longer than men. Conflict is another threat to human development. Education, or the lack of, is also a major contributor. Children in extreme poverty rarely go to school.
Some possible strategies to help end extreme poverty are education, gender equality, and to improve health. Education would help tremendously. Young children need to be in school, and they are not in these regions. In the poorer countries, 34.4% of children did not complete primary school. Without any education, the generations will continue the same path they are on now. By promoting gender equality, more women would be able to find work and help their family move from the poverty level. Improvements on health care and health conditions would also benefit these countries. One option would be the offer of birth control and for women to be able to decide if they want more children would also help to lower the population numbers and not add more people into poverty.
