poverty in third world countries
Poverty occurs in most parts of the world. Nevertheless, the more serious and problematical poverty takes part in the third world and the southern parts of the globe. First of all, we have to clearly define the word "poverty". In a broad sense, it means that people within this "poverty" region are poor or have a lower average income per capita than other regions. To a deeper approach, we refer "poverty" as people have low educational backgrounds, lack of food supplies, or people with lower standard of livings, etc. According to the Webster's New World Dictionary, the word "poverty" can be defined as: 1) the condition or quality of being poor 2) deficiency; inadequacy 3) scarcity (Webster's p.461). Generally in this essay, we will examine the facts that lead to the poverty of these third world and southern countries. The first and the most serious problem that causes by poverty are hunger, or preciously, malnutrition. We can find these kinds of problems almost all over Africa and some other underdeveloped countries. These were witnessed by thousands of people through TV, radio, newspaper, journals, etc. "In the early 1980s, the mass media dramatically brought us the picture of hunger from Africa - starving children
It seems bizarre, that we, modern, intelligent people, have not yet succeded to get rid of the differences between DCs (developed countries) and LDCs (less developed countries). 1. Canada (0.950) 1. Niger (0.207) 9. Spain (0.930) 9. Somalia (0.246) According to the above chart, we can find the worst place to live mainly in African countries and southern regions of the hemisphere; or preciously, the "third world" and undeveloped countries. On the other hand, countries with better political institutions and economic policies (i.e. Canada and United States) are ranked the best places to live in. These are examples of "basic human needs" programs which are run with some success because the host-country governments impose their own solutions on local problems. The other issues that rise poverty in Africa is the irrational economical policies and huge amount of financial debts. "According to U.N. Economic Commission for Africa, the debt-service obligations within African countries dedicating an estimated 34 percent of the income generated by the export of goods and services to interest payments." (Reeves p.115) We can see that many of the incomes generated by the working forces are obligating for the foreign debt payments. One of the irrational policies that spread hunger in Africa is the structural adjustment program (SAPs): The other country that we are going to explore is Indonesia. Despite the crisis and strikes that occurred in 97, Indonesia is experiencing a declining rate of poverty. "In 1970, it was one of the poorest countries in the world: 70 million people, 60 percent of the population, lived below the official poverty line...In 1987, the average Indonesian's income was $450, the poverty rate had fallen to 17 percent, or about 30 million people." (Reeves p.65) Although hunger is still striking the mainland of Indonesia, it is processing in a declining rate. General Suharto took power in 1966 and applied lots of new economic policies to strengthen the "postwar" country. "Early on, Suharto brought a group of Western-trained economic "technocrats" into the government. They have exerted considerable influence over economic policy...Since the mid-1970s, the government has maintained balanced budgets and a realistic exchange rate." (Reeves p.66) The rising international petroleum prices during the 1970s also brought Indonesia a lot of foreign revenues. This could help the new government to renovate the postwar cities and towns. "The Indonesian government made better use of the oil bonanza than many other oil-blessed governments did. The Indonesian authorities used oil money to finance the "green revolution" on Java." (Reeves p.66) The government used oil revenues to invest in non-food export crops, neglecting cassava and corn (the main foods of poor people). Thus, hunger in Indonesia is still a serious problem to be solved.
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2758
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page double spaced)
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