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War

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the royal family attracts tourism which creates money

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It has a good economy and, and industries are unlikely to go into debt.
Low risk of inflation.

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They have cramped living conditions and are not very sanitary

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Lack of education so unable to get a job in later life

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Tourism

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Extreme weather

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Heavily populated

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water access

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The top 11 causes of poverty around the world

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Over 10% of the world lives in extreme poverty. But why? From public works to pandemics, we look at the 11 top causes of poverty, updated for 2022.

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many slums and slacks all cramped together with extremely unsanitary conditions

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Lack of water and food

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a non-corrupt and democratic government

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Reasons for wealth in G20 countries:

Climate Action and Infrastructure for Development.

Social Cohesion, Global Governance and the Future of Politics.

Migration.

Gender Economic Equity.

Food Security and Sustainable Agriculture.

Trade, Investment and Tax Cooperation.

Future of Work.

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Lack of jobs

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Here's a question that needs to be addressed - why are some countries poor? Often our answers seem to fall into one of two camps. We either believe the rich countries exploit the poorer ones and it's the fault of the west, or we believe the poor countries are corrupt and pretty much deserve what they get. So we end up thinking of the third world as either helpless victims or money-grabbing scroungers. Neither of these extremes does justice to the third world and the predicament it is in.

In our modern world, wealth depends on trade, in goods or services. Trade depends on infrastructure, and infrastructure in turn depends on investment. This is the essence of development. The more 'developed' a country is, the more money it is capable of making. So in talking about poor countries, we are talking about Less Economically Developed Countries (LEDCs - This is a better term than 'the developing world', as some poor countries may not actually be developing, but standing still or even shrinking.) In asking ourselves why some countries are poor, what we need to work out is why they are not developing. And there are several reasons, with geographical, political, and cultural factors all coming in to play. I was going to do one entry here, but that would be huge, so I'm going to let this serve as an introduction and you can click on each of these sections to find out more.

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Here's a question that needs to be addressed - why are some countries poor? Often our answers seem to fall into one of two camps. We either believe the rich countries exploit the poorer ones and it's the fault of the west, or we believe the poor countries are corrupt and pretty much deserve what...

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Mr olly g says good policies

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Climate change

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Lack of infrastructure

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Assessing the scale of human suffering in Venezuela has proven increasingly difficult since 2015, when most institutions in President Nicolás Maduro's government ceased publishing socioeconomic statistics. But a confidential United Nations report drafted last month based on independent data provides a glimpse of just how bad the situation there has become.

The 45-page report, titled Venezuela: Overview of Priority of Humanitarian Needs, describes widespread hunger, and diminishing access to education, clean water, electricity, and health care in a country that was once one of Latin America's richest.

"[D]ue to an increasingly contracted economy and political unrest, the Venezuelan population is facing unprecedented challenges in accessing essential services, including protection, health care, medicines, vaccinations, water, electricity, education and access to food," says the report, drafted by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

It says Venezuela's inflation jumped from 21.1 percent in 2012 to 10 million percent this year.

The report, which was obtained by FP, estimates that 7 million Venezuelans, out of a population of 28.8 million, are in dire need of assistance. It predicts that some 1.9 million Venezuelans will flee their homeland this year, in addition to the 3.4 million refugees who have already swamped neighboring countries.

The U.N. has been reluctant to release its findings in part because of concerns they would complicate efforts to secure cooperation from the government on international humanitarian relief efforts. The world body also worried that opponents of Maduro, including the United States, would use the report as part of their effort to bring down his government. The New York Times first cited the findings in a story last week.

The number of undernourished people from among an estimated current population of 29 million people (adjusted to reflect the 3.4 million migrants believed to have fled Venezuela).

The number of cases of malaria in 2017 according to the World Health Organization, a 69 percent increase from 2016, and the largest increase in the world.
The number of people abroad
The homicide rate per 100,000 inhabitants in 2018, according to the Venezuela Observatory of Violence.

The rate of infant mortality in 2015-2016, according to Venezuela's Ministry of People's Power for Health.

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Assessing the scale of human suffering in Venezuela has proven increasingly difficult since 2015, when most institutions in President Nicolás Maduro's government ceased publishing socioeconomic statistics. But a confidential United Nations report drafted last month based on independent data provides a glimpse of just how bad the situation there has become.

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Overpopulation

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a healthy and developed police system

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Inequality

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Desaeses

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Author and Page information

This page: https://www.globalissues.org/issue/2/causes-of-poverty.

To print all information (e.g. expanded side notes, shows alternative links), use the print version:

Almost half the world - over 3 billion people - live on less than $2.50 a day.

The GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of the 41 Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (567 million people) is less than the wealth of the world's 7 richest people combined.

Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names.

Less than one per cent of what the world spent every year on weapons was needed to put every child into school by the year 2000 and yet it didn't happen.

1 billion children live in poverty (1 in 2 children in the world). 640 million live without adequate shelter, 400 million have no access to safe water, 270 million have no access to health services. 10.6 million died in 2003 before they reached the age of 5 (or roughly 29,000 children per day).

More Facts (and Sources) "

Poverty is the state for the majority of the world's people and nations. Why is this? Is it enough to blame poor people for their own predicament? Have they been lazy, made poor decisions, and been solely responsible for their plight? What about their governments? Have they pursued policies that actually harm successful development? Such causes of poverty and inequality are no doubt real. But deeper and more global causes of poverty are often less discussed.

Behind the increasing interconnectedness promised by globalization are global decisions, policies, and practices. These are typically influenced, driven, or formulated by the rich and powerful. These can be leaders of rich countries or other global actors such as multinational corporations, institutions, and influential people.

In the face of such enormous external influence, the governments of poor nations and their people are often powerless. As a result, in the global context, a few get wealthy while the majority struggle.

These next few articles and sections explore various poverty issues in more depth:

14 articles on "Causes of Poverty" and 6 related issues:

Most of humanity lives on just a few dollars a day. Whether you live in the wealthiest nations in the world or the poorest, you will see high levels of inequality.

The poorest people will also have less access to health, education and other services. Problems of hunger, malnutrition and disease afflict the poorest in society. The poorest are also typically marginalized from society and have little representation or voice in public and political debates, making it even harder to escape poverty.

By contrast, the wealthier you are, the more likely you are to benefit from economic or political policies. The amount the world spends on military, financial bailouts and other areas that benefit the wealthy, compared to the amount spent to address the daily crisis of poverty and related problems are often staggering.

Some facts and figures on poverty presented in this page are eye-openers, to say the least.

Read " Poverty Facts and Stats " to learn more.

Around the world, in rich or poor nations, poverty has always been present.

In most nations today, inequality-the gap between the rich and the poor-is quite high and often widening.

The causes are numerous, including a lack of individual responsibility, bad government policy, exploitation by people and businesses with power and influence, or some combination of these and other factors.

Many feel that high levels of inequality will affect social cohesion and lead to problems such as increasing crime and violence.

Inequality is often a measure of relative poverty. Absolute poverty, however, is also a concern. World Bank figures for world poverty reveals a higher number of people live in poverty than previously thought.

For example, the new poverty line is defined as living on the equivalent of $1.25 a day. With that measure based on latest data available (2005), 1.4 billion people live on or below that line.

Furthermore, almost half the world-over three billion people-live on less than $2.50 a day and at least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day:

Read " Poverty Around The World " to learn more.

Around 21,000 children die every day around the world.

That is equivalent to:

1 child dying every 4 seconds

14 children dying every minute

A 2011 Libya conflict-scale death toll every day

A 2010 Haiti earthquake occurring every 10 days

A 2004 Asian Tsunami occurring every 11 days

An Iraq-scale death toll every 19-46 days

Just under 7.6 million children dying every year

Some 92 million children dying between 2000 and 2010

The silent killers are poverty, easily preventable diseases and illnesses, and other related causes. Despite the scale of this daily/ongoing catastrophe, it rarely manages to achieve, much less sustain, prime-time, headline coverage.

Read " Today, around 21,000 children died around the world " to learn more.

Food aid (when not for emergency relief) can actually be very destructive on the economy of the recipient nation and contribute to more hunger and poverty in the long term. Free, subsidized, or cheap food, below market prices undercuts local farmers, who cannot compete and are driven out of jobs and into poverty, further slanting the market share of the larger producers such as those from the US and Europe. Many poor nations are dependent on farming, and so such food aid amounts to food dumping. In the past few decades, more powerful nations have used this as a foreign policy tool for dominance rather than for real aid.

Read " Food Dumping [Aid] Maintains Poverty " to learn more.

Food and agriculture goes to the heart of our civilizations. Religions, cultures and even modern civilization have food and agriculture at their core. For an issue that goes to the heart of humanity it also has its ugly side.

This issue explores topics ranging from the global food crisis of 2008, to issues of food aid, world hunger, food dumping and wasteful agriculture such as growing tobacco, sugar, beef, and more.

Read " Food and Agriculture Issues " to learn more.

Read " Trade, Economy, & Related Issues " to learn more.

We often hear leaders from rich countries telling poor countries that aid and loans will only be given when they show they are stamping out corruption.

While that definitely needs to happen, the rich countries themselves are often active in the largest forms of corruption in those poor countries, and many economic policies they prescribe have exacerbated the problem.

Corruption in developing countries definitely must be high on the priority lists (and is increasingly becoming so in the wake of the global financial crisis), but so too must it be on the priority lists of rich countries.

Read " Corruption " to learn more.

Through tax havens, transfer pricing and many other policies - both legal and illegal - billions of dollars of tax are avoided. The much-needed money would helped developing (and developed) countries provide important social services for their populations.

Some tax avoidance, regardless of how morally objectionable it may be to some people, is perfectly legal, and the global super elite are able to hide away trillions of dollars, resulting in massive losses of tax revenues for cash-strapped governments who then burden ordinary citizens further with austerity measures during economic crisis, for example. Yet these super elite are often very influential in politics and business. In effect, they are able to undermine democracy and capitalism at the same time.

As the global financial crisis has affected many countries, tackling tax avoidance would help target those more likely to have contributed to the problem while avoid many unnecessary austerity measures that hit the poorest so hard. But despite rhetoric stating otherwise, it does not seem to high on the agenda of many governments as you might think.

Read " Tax Avoidance and Tax Havens; Undermining Democracy " to learn more.

In 1970, the world's rich countries agreed to give 0.7% of their gross national income as official international development aid, annually.

Since that time, billions have certainly been given each year, but rarely have the rich nations actually met their promised target.

For example, the US is often the largest donor in dollar terms, but ranks amongst the lowest in terms of meeting the stated 0.7% target.

Furthermore, aid has often come with a price of its own for the developing nations. Common criticisms, for many years, of foreign aid, have included the following:

Aid is often wasted on conditions that the recipient must use overpriced goods and services from donor countries

Most aid does not actually go to the poorest who would need it the most

Aid amounts are dwarfed by rich country protectionism that denies market access for poor country products while rich nations use aid as a lever to open poor country markets to their products

Large projects or massive grand strategies often fail to help the vulnerable; money can often be embezzled away.

This article explores who has benefited most from this aid, the recipients or the donors.

Read " Foreign Aid for Development Assistance " to learn more.

Read " Trade, Economic Links For More Information " to learn more.

Read " Sustainable Development " to learn more.

There are numerous forms of aid, from humanitarian emergency assistance, to longer term development aid. Some provide food aid, or military assistance, but all these forms of aid seem to be accompanied with criticism, either around inefficiency of delivery, or of political agendas or more. This section attempts to look at some of these issues.

Read " Aid " to learn more.

Author and Page Information

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causes of poverty in third world countries

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The poverty section of the Global Issues web site looks into causes of poverty around the world. Why are poor nations poor? What are the roles of the IMF and World Bank with their Structural Adjustment policies? What are the effects of debt.

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Mr olly g says taxes

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factors - some areas have a hostile or difficult landscape. This can make development more difficult. Examples of this are very hot climates or (a lack of water) climates which make it difficult to grow sufficient food.

factors - some countries have very high levels of . This means that they have to pay a lot of money in and and there is very little left over for development projects.

factors - some places experience environmental issues, which can prevent them from developing. Examples might be extreme flooding or .

factors - some parts of the world have issues that are caused by people. These include low levels of education, poor water quality or a lack of doctors.

Political factors - some countries are at war or the government may be corrupt. Therefore money does not reach the people who need it most and spending on areas such as education and infrastructure may be insufficient.

Natural resources - some countries have an abundance of raw materials such as oil or precious minerals. These can be sold and the money invested into developing the country.

The cycle of poverty

The factors influencing development are often linked and countries can find themselves in a . For example, if a country is in a lot of debt, it cannot afford good schools. If people are poorly educated they are less likely to understand about the causes of desertification. Desertification leads to poor crop growth and low incomes. This leads back to the country accumulating debt and the cycle continues.

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Why some countries are richer than others - OCR - Revision 4 - GCSE Geography - BBC Bitesize

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factors - some areas have a hostile or difficult landscape. This can make development more difficult. Examples of this are very hot climates or (a lack of water) climates which make it difficult to grow sufficient food. factors - some countries have very high levels of .

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Natural disasters

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Even though Britain is 4th richest country in the world, there are still cities failing to catch up

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High crime rates