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Abou Berete
Professor: Gary
English 2010
11/03/2015
Global Poverty
"In efforts to lift some 2 billion people around the world out of extreme poverty by 2030,
the 'big push' might not be new, but on the right scale, it could be a game-changer, new research
suggests. The big push as an approach to alleviating extreme poverty has recorded successes,
typically on small scales in various countries. But it has not been examined rigorously to see how
well it works across cultural and political boundaries. Now, a study released Thursday [May 14,
2015] suggests that the approach can yield lasting improvements for people in diverse countries.
And it shows that when properly implemented, such programs are cost effective This article
identifies development programs and a "big push" to lift 2 billion people out of poverty
worldwide by 2030 as the key to success.
Each year, governments, journalists, development experts and others look forward to the
United Nations Development Programme's Human Development Report. The report includes a
ranking of countries based on life expectancy, literacy, quality of life and so on. Once it is
released, governments and citizens of countries with high rankings immediately trumpet their
achievements. Those with lower rankings, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which
was last in 2013 in Africa, come in for criticism.
For me there is not a real plan for how to fight the poverty in the world; there is system
some system around the world that encourage the poverty. For example, in the Unites States of
America, we have more homeless each year than the year before. Why is that? How can we fight

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the poverty around the world while we have tremendous numbers of people living in the streets
here at home. After my Remarque and I talk to some homeless people here, most of them have
been in jail or drug abuse; we should give a second chance to some of them in order for them to
better themselves off.
In my own country ( Guinea), the corruption is the real cause of the poverty, the
government does not have a real strategy to fight the poverty; people go day to day without
having any meal to eat, while Africa spent more on military than it does on the agriculture that
perpetuates the circle of the poverty. World poverty have some very good impact on human
wellbeing, it encourages child labor, prostitution, corruption.
When UNDP announced it would launch its first-ever Africa Human Development Report in
2012, many expected that it would also include a general country ranking. Instead, the regional
report focused on the theme "Towards a food secure future", with extensive analyses and
recommendations on that topic. If the intention of the 190-page report was to generate debate on
filling empty stomachs in Africa with nutritious food, that goal was accomplished -- probably
beyond expectations.
Who is at fault for this awful situation? What are its likely consequences? One way to
answer those questions is to reflect on past famines for which the historical records are robust
enough to draw useful parallels with the present. Too many analyses today focus on the
conditions in the camps and the parched land. Those issues are important, and the world needs to
know about them if aid is to be raised to feed the dying. They are, however, only one part of the
story.
History can also provide an opportunity to think about the likely long-term consequences
of famine: demographic, economic, political, and cultural. In demographic terms, famine deaths

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deplete the work force, multiply the social burden of orphans, send the elderly and weak to
earlier graves, and decimate the rising generation of children. Those who survive are left with
few resources, and those still maturing have their development stunted. Of course we must not
turn our backs on those millions who are starving today. But we should remember that
deadly famines have deep causes and profound consequences. They are more creatures of
geopolitics than of local environmental failure. Whether we have the moral imagination and
political will to learn that lesson is as much in question today as it was in the past.
We must learn from the past; today more 2 billion people live below the poverty line,
some of them are refugees and some are not. When the civil war hit Liberia, the neighborhood
country, people fled to my country, and I remember we used to help those refugees, and families
and the village was told to share what they have with those refuges, everything was more
expensive, they had little help from the international community. From my personal experience,
if we are to end poverty, we must find the solution for all the civil war around world, remove
from the power people who refuse to share (dictators).
The challenge, therefore, is to identify the conditions that underpin poverty. In thinking
about the crisis in East Africa today, we ought to begin by looking at how vulnerability is created
and how poor communities that have formerly coped with erratic rainfall find themselves unable
to weather the shock of drought. Long-term, degrading poverty means that whole communities,
to adapt a classic formulation of the historian R.H. Tawney, are "standing up to their neck in
water so that even a ripple is sufficient to drown them.
We should not be facing this challenge today. In the 1960s and '70s, the world understood that
agricultural development was an indispensable tool in alleviating hunger, reducing poverty, and
driving economic growth. A combination of new, high-yielding crops developed by scientists

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such as Norman Borlaug and sustained investments from the U.S. and other countries helped
save hundreds of millions of people from starvation in India, Mexico and elsewhere.

Yet during the past three decades the world's interest in agriculture waned. Donor nations moved
on to focus on other issues. The result is that there has been a sharp drop in aid for agriculture. In
1979, nearly 18% of all official development assistance world-wide went to agriculture. In 2008,
about 5% did. Private investment in agriculture in Africa is insignificant. Today, many Africans
face food shortages in part because the average African farmer produces half the amount of crops
per acre of an Indian farmer, one-fourth that of a Chinese farmer, and just one-fifth that of an
American farmer (Geithner, Gates).

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Works Cited

Geithner, Timothy, and Bill Gates. "A New Initiative to Feed the World." Wall Street Journal. 22
Apr. 2010: A.23. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 03 Nov. 2015.
Ighobor, Kingsley. "Africa's Economy Grows, but Many Stomachs Are Empty." Daily News
Egypt. 16 Mar. 2014: n.p. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 03 Nov. 2015.
Nally, David P. "A Closer Look at Famine." Chronicle of Higher Education. 16 Oct. 2011:
n.p. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 03 Nov. 2015.
ProQuest Staff. "Global Poverty Timeline." Leading Issues Timelines. 2015: n.p. SIRS Issues
Researcher. Web. 15 Nov. 2015.
Spotts, Pete. "In Global Fight Against Extreme Poverty, a Potential Game-Changer." Christian
Science Monitor. 15 May 2015: n.p. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 03 Nov. 2015.