Introduction: Poverty refers to a situation when people are deprived of basic necessities of life. It is often characterized by inadequacy of food, shelter and clothes. In other words, poverty refers to a state of privation where there is a lack of essential needs for subsistence. India is one of the poorest countries in the world. Many Indian people do not get two meals a day.
Childhood poverty is a serious issue across the world. For children, poverty is defined as the deprivation of necessary aspects of life such as, nutrition, health, water, education, or shelter. According to Unicef, 47 percent of those living in extreme poverty are 18 years old or younger which means that nearly 385 million children are living in poverty worldwide (based on data from 89 countries).This is a staggering result as this means that children account for almost half of the world’s extreme poor. According to the World Bank Group and Unicef, the youngest children are the worst off. More than one-fifth of children under the age of five in the developing countries face extreme poverty compared to 15% of 15-17 year old that live in poverty.It is appalling that children, as young as five years old are in danger.
Poverty, a predicament where the poor live a life of destituteness. A life either devoid of or lack of food, water, shelter, clothes, and education. In plain English, poverty is defined as a situation where the poor are lacking the basic essentials required for them to sustain their lives. In relation, one of the most commonly known countries to be affected by poverty is India. Based on Global Finance, India is ranked as the sixty-fourth poorest country in the world.
The number of low birth weight babies is concentrated in two regions of the developing world: Asia and Africa. Seventy-two per cent of low birth weight infants in developing countries are born in Asia where most births also take place, and 22 per cent are born in Africa. India alone accounts for 40 per cent of low birth weight births in the developing world and more than half of those in Asia. There are more than 1 million infants born with low birth weight in China and nearly 8 million in India (2004). Latin America and the Caribbean, and Oceania have the lowest number of low birth weight infants, with 1.2 million and 27,000, respectively.10 According to a study by the Ministry of Health of the Union Government, 30 per cent of the infants born in India were Low Birth Weight Babies, 10 per cent were less than 2 kg, three per cent weighed less than 1.5 kg, and 0.7 per cent weighed less than one kg.
The study shows that children living in poverty are less likely to be successful than the middle or upper-class counterparts (Hillestad, 2014). Even if children in poverty go to school regularly, most of them fail to get an adequate education. For instance, Nigeria is one of the poorest countries in Africa and Socket is the biggest city which is surrounded by desert. Nearly 9 out of 10 people live below the poverty line which means earning below $1.25 one day. The government is inefficient and corruption prevails.
In a recent survey, it was estimated that the population of the Philippines is 102 million, most of those people have to face poverty every day. Migrants with low-paying jobs or without jobs are unable to afford housing or feed their families. In 2012, it was estimated that the extreme poverty in the Philippines was 19.2% (18.4 million people). Most of the poor people live in rural areas and work primarily in farming and agriculture. Lack of infrastructure prevents Philippines’ economy from growing .A country like the Philippines that is still developing also makes it hard for the government to provide basic needs like services in health, education and clean water supply.
According to Food and Nutrition Security Policy for St. Lucia (2013) in 2012 approximately 20.6% of the population can be regarded as living below the poverty level. The policy goes on to indicate that high unemployment and high food prices have resulted in several households being unable to earn incomes and obtain foods to meet their nutritional requirements resulting in that 16% are indigent (FNSP, 2013). Increasing levels of poverty are often linked to increasing levels of ill health (NSHP, 2006-2011). Studies have shown that the underprivileged often put off health needs for more pressing needs like food and shelter (NSHP, 2006-2011). Poverty directly influences health and well-being.
POVERTY AND SOCIAL EXCLUSION FROM A MULTI-DIMENSIONAL PERSPECTIVE By Vivek Guruprasad Poverty means the state of being extremely poor or the state of one who lacks a certain amount of material possessions or money. Poverty is a very common social issue in today’s world. One billion people are living in conditions of extreme poverty and almost 30 percent of them are youths. Youths are the most vulnerable to the effect of hunger and poverty. Almost half of the world, Over three billion people live on less than 2.50 dollars a day in an average.
Today, more than three quarters of the population live in households with per capita calorie consumption below 2,100 per day in urban areas and 2,400 per day in rural areas – numbers that are often cited as “minimum requirements” in India. A related concern is that anthropometric indicators of nutrition in India, for both adults and children, are among the worst in the world. Furthermore, the improvement of these measures of nutrition appears to be slow relative to what might be expected in the light of international experience and of India’s recent high rates of economic growth. Indeed, according to the National Family Health Survey, the proportion of underweight children remained virtually unchanged between 1998-99 and 2005-06 (from 47% to 46 % for the age group of 0-3 years). Under nutrition levels in India remain higher than for most countries of sub-Saharan Africa, even though those countries are currently much poorer than India, have much slower growth, and have much higher levels of infant and child
Poverty is more than the lack of income and resources to ensure a sustainable livelihood. The manifestations of poverty include hunger and malnutrition, limited access to education and skill training and other basic social services, social discrimination and exclusion as well as the lack of participation in decision-making (UMC, Book of Discipline 2012). The “United Nations” report on “Sustainable Development” states that over seven million people still live in extreme poverty of which majority of this population live on less than 1.9 dollars daily in Southern Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. About 70% of the global total of extremely poor people account for this million population (UNDP 2016). The report further states that extreme poverty is