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Poverty

Poverty needs to be defined, as it can be looked at in several different ways. In these pages we are speaking about global or world poverty, and depending on how you define it, you can see it in both developed and developing countries.

• It may be seen as people in material need. This means lacking the basic necessities of daily living which are food, shelter, clothing and health care.
• It may also be seen as people deprived of their social needs, thus the are unable to participate in society.
• Finally it may be seen as people lacking a lack sufficient income and money. This is understood as economic poverty.
  

This translates into some interesting realities. Poor people consume less food than is normally required to sustain the body (less than 2000 kcalories daily). They receive less than $2 (US) daily and often less than $1 daily. They live less, their children die often as children, they have no access to clean water and are ill most of their lives.

This was once thought of as a problem of developing countries but is now seen in developed countries as well. Let's see some of poverty's consequences as statistics:

• One third of all deaths - some 18 million people a year or 50,000 per day - are due to poverty-related causes. That's 270 million people since 1990, the majority women and children, roughly equal to the population of the US.
  
• Every year nearly 11 million children die before their fifth birthday.
  
• 800 million people go to bed hungry every day.
  

Statistics say the above is improving, but watching the nightly international news would certainly give you an alternative view on the subject. The pages that follow cover the problem, its causes, and hopefully, its solutions