Poverty is the scarcity or the lack of a certain (variant) amount of material possessions or money. Poverty is a multifaceted concept, which may include social, economic, and political elements. Absolute poverty, extreme poverty, or destitution refers to the complete lack of the means necessary to meet basic personal needs such as food, clothing and shelter.
The threshold at which absolute poverty is defined is considered to be about the same, independent of the person’s permanent location or era. On the other hand, relative poverty occurs when a person who lives in a given country does not enjoy a certain minimum level of “living standards” as compared to the rest of the population of that country. Therefore, the threshold at which relative poverty is defined varies from country to another, or from one society to another.
Providing basic needs can be restricted by constraints on government’s ability to deliver services, such as corruption, tax avoidance, debt and loan conditionalities and by the brain drain of health care and educational professionals. Strategies of increasing income to make basic needs more affordable typically include welfare, economic freedoms and providing financial services.
Poverty reduction is still a major issue (or a target) for many international organizations such as the United Nations and the World Bank.
The World Bank forecasts that 702.1 million people, down from 1.75 billion in 1990. Of these, about 347.1 million people lived in Sub-Saharan Africa (35.2{f4939b0942719324bd6406706ede5fc9bf1507f8b640480bf4ba5f5181bde69b} of the population) and 231.3 million lived in South Asia (13.5{f4939b0942719324bd6406706ede5fc9bf1507f8b640480bf4ba5f5181bde69b} of the population). According to the World Bank, between 1990 and 2015, the percentage of the world’s population living in extreme poverty fell from 37.1{f4939b0942719324bd6406706ede5fc9bf1507f8b640480bf4ba5f5181bde69b} to 9.6{f4939b0942719324bd6406706ede5fc9bf1507f8b640480bf4ba5f5181bde69b}, falling below 10{f4939b0942719324bd6406706ede5fc9bf1507f8b640480bf4ba5f5181bde69b} for the first time. Nevertheless, given the current economic model, built on GDP, it would take 100 years to bring the world’s poorest up to the previous poverty line of $1.25 a day. Extreme poverty is a global challenge; it is observed in all parts of the world, including developed economies. UNICEF estimates half the world’s children (or 1.1 billion) live in poverty. It has been argued by some academics that the neoliberal policies promoted by global financial institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank are actually exacerbating both inequality and poverty.
Another estimate places the true scale of poverty much higher than the World Bank, with an estimated 4.3 billion people (59 percent of the world’s population) living with less than $5 a day and unable to meet basic needs adequately.
In 2012 it is estimated that, given a poverty line of $1.25 a day 1.2 billion people lived in extreme poverty.