American Public University
Poverty is defined as lack of access to the resources necessary for survival due to low level of income earnings in a household. The different countries have different thresholds for defining the poverty. UNDP accepts people who earn less than 1 dollar a day as the poverty threshold and the Millennium Goals of the United Nations aim at reducing the number of people earning less than 1 dollar a day (UNDP, 2017). Recently, sustainable economic development is discussed among the academicians and the professionals. Fast economic growth has been the main aim of many emerging economies in the last decades; however, this has caused some inequalities and poverty.
Sustainable development approach aims at tackling two main problems: firstly, protecting the environment and providing development by keeping a balance between humankind and natures, and secondly, creating a socially balanced economy with equal distribution of income (Sen, 2008). The last incidences of the armed conflicts in the Middle Eastern countries and Africa have proved us that the income inequality and other inequalities in societies and between societies might create huge problems for all humankind, not only for poor people. Up to 2000, economic growth has been the main of economic development strategies in the developed and the developing countries; however, the last global financial crisis has given the intuition of how the global economy might get hurt terribly by the poverty, and the poverty crisis might be trouble for the poor and the rich.
Poverty is not only the problem of the least developed countries. Many developed countries have problems regarding poverty (Sen, 2008). There are some groups suffering from poverty and discrimination or social exclusion in the developed countries. The Roma people live almost in all the countries in the world, and they suffer from the poverty almost everywhere. They had come to Europe before the 13th century, and some resources indicate that they migrated from India or neighboring places to the European countries. Today, there is almost 100 million Roma people live in the European countries (Brown, 2013). Another large group is the Black people living in the developed countries. There are many studies indicating that the Black people receive less income than other people. Also, they have difficulties to have relatively better positions in the society. Strangely, we observe that the Black immigrants from Africa in the developing and the developed countries have similar issues (Packer, 2015). Thirdly, some religious groups in the Middle Eastern countries suffer from poverty and discrimination. For instance, the Yazidi people in Iraq and Syria have faced many challenges recently. Finally, the Syrian immigrants face the poverty problem in the other countries, and especially in Turkey. The European developed countries and the other developed countries including Canada, the US, and Japan have not accepted getting some of these immigrants to their countries, and only a small percentage of the immigrants were granted to have the private rights. The Syrians in Turkey are facing serious social and economic challenges, and we hear some news that the Syrians are having difficulty to find a job, rent a house, or start a business. Also, many poor Syrians are begging on the streets and the main intercity roads. Even though many countries claim to have a developed democracy or a proper country management, we observe that some social groups are discriminated because of their cultural background, religions, or other factors. Another important issue is that the income inequality is increasing the discrimination between the social groups in many countries.
The statistics also indicates that the world is suffering from the poverty. According to the statistics of the World Bank, the rate of the people receiving less than 1.90 USD was more than 30% in the 1990s, and it dropped to 12.45 in 2012, and 10.7% in 2013. Sub-Saharan countries, Indonesia, China, and many South Asian countries are the countries with large populations suffering from poverty (World Bank, 2017). Extending the income level for poverty to 10 dollars a day gives us the result that 80% of the world population earns less than 10 dollars a day. The income gap between social groups is deepening in many countries and 80% of the whole world population is influenced by this. The UNICEF reports that 22,000 children die every day due to the poor living conditions and poverty in the world (Shah, 2013).
The Middle Eastern region is a special case regarding poverty especially after the war in Iraq, the Arabic Spring, and the Syrian armed conflict. Almost 20% of the Iraqi population is living under 2 USD a day, Yemen has a poverty rate of 37%, and other Middle Eastern countries have relatively worse poverty statistics compared to the developed countries. The refugee problem from Iraq, Syria, and the African countries to the developed countries are deepening the poverty problem in the region and the world. Almost 3 million Syrian refugees are in Turkey now, and only a few thousand of them could manage to get a residence permit in the European countries (Khalid, 2015). 3 million is a large number and considering that at least one generation in the region will not be able to have stable life conditions and education, and it might create new dynamics that can cause relatively deeper poverty in the future.
Poverty might occur because of many different reasons. As we know, the slavery system in the past have created poor, the unfair trade between the countries and the societies, the discrimination of some social groups, political and armed conflicts, and natural disasters might be the reason (Duncan et al., 1993). The stories of the disadvantaged groups are specific; however, the most seen case is the social exclusion or the social discrimination. Discrimination creates high barriers in front of the discriminated social group for reaching public services including health and education, and the labor markets to have a fair wage in the market (Sen, 2008). For instance, all the European countries including the members of the EU and the non-members have small or large Roma people populations. All these countries claim to have democracy and human rights perfectly; however, the most developed European countries could not accept the Roma people as their citizens. The Roma people are forced to move to the other places and the other countries to survive, and this state of being immigrant all the time makes impossible to reach high education and many public services. The situation of the Roma people in the developing countries like Turkey is relatively worse, and they face relatively more social pressure on them.
The immigration from the Middle Eastern countries and Africa to the developed countries might create a new type of poverty in the world. Considering that these immigrants will have a social adaptation problem in the developed countries or their new countries if they can manage to reach them. The current residents of the developed countries will probably exclude the newcomers to their countries (Duncan et al., 1993). Especially taking the fact that many of the immigrants have completely different cultural and religious backgrounds into account, the Europeans will not be able to develop an understanding of the culture of the newcomers. It is possible to see a similarity between the Roma people and the Syrian immigrants. The Roma population had immigrated from Asia to the European countries, and this community could not develop a social adaptation in many centuries because of big cultural differences. There is a big cultural difference between the Syrian immigrants and the Europeans, and we might expect something similar to the Roma people.
Fighting poverty is claimed to be an important socio-economic development strategy by many countries. The development programs implemented in the developing and the least developed countries mainly aim at improving the human resources through making them reach information and technical knowledge. Education and creating information channels for the poor people to improve them are two important tools for socio-economic development. Secondly, removing social prejudice against some social groups is an important way of fighting poverty, inequality, and discrimination. For instance, many people assume that the Roma population have a few professions they can successfully perform, and many people cannot imagine that the Roma people can be doctors, professors, or any other professionals in our communities. Finally, developing equal opportunities for everybody is the best way of fighting poverty, discrimination, and inequalities (Sen, 2008).
Consequently, poverty is accepted as one of the biggest problems for a sustainable social and economic development. Poverty is also the issue of all the countries, and it does not only belong to the poor countries in the world. If poverty cannot be tackled, the rich will suffer from the poverty as much as the poor suffers.
References
Brown, P. (2013). Who are the Roma people?. New Internationalist. Retrieved 20 January 2017, from https://newint.org/blog/2013/10/28/roma-minority-prejudice/
Duncan, G., Gustafsson, B., Hauser, R., Schmauss, G., Messinger, H., & Muffels, R. et al. (1993). Poverty dynamics in eight countries. Journal Of Population Economics, 6(3), 215-234. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/bf00163068
Khalid, A. (2015). Poverty in the Middle East. Borgenmagazine.com. Retrieved 19 January 2017, from http://www.borgenmagazine.com/poverty-middle-east/
Packer, G. (2015). The Other Paris. The New Yorker. Retrieved 20 January 2017, from http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/08/31/the-other-france
O'Connor, T. (2016). Taxing soft drinks – stealthy or healthy?. Intheblack.com. Retrieved 19 January 2017, from https://intheblack.com/articles/2016/07/27/taxing-soft-drinks-stealthy-or-healthy
Shah, A. (2013). Poverty Facts and Stats — Global Issues. Globalissues.org. Retrieved 20 January 2017, from http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats
Sen, A. (2008). Violence, Identity and Poverty. Journal Of Peace Research, 45(1), 5-15. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0022343307084920
UNDP,. (2017). Poverty | United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Unesco.org. Retrieved 20 January 2017, from http://www.unesco.org/new/en/social-and-human-sciences/themes/international-migration/glossary/poverty/
World Bank,. (2017). Poverty Overview. Worldbank.org. Retrieved 19 January 2017, from http://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/poverty/overview
