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Poverty is the state of having no resources or either financial, economic means to sustain the livelihood of an individual. This has been a global challenge since time immemorial. The World Bank released statistics in 2008 indicating that over 1.4 billion people in the world are affected by poverty, as these populations lives below 1.25 dollars a day. Global poverty indicators include but not limited to very low or lack of income, access to natural resources, poor health systems in place that have in turn increased the rates of death especially in children under the age of 5years, starvation and hunger that causes malnutrition diseases such as Kwashiorkor and Marasmus among children, inability to be part of the country's development process through decision making that affects policy formulations, lack of sanitation, clean environment and housing facilities that have rendered many as homeless and living on the street, lack of education hence increased illiteracy levels and social discrimination (United Nations, 2010).
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Paradigm shift of the Global poverty crisis
International organizations have research findings indicating that the global poverty rate is decreasing, though at a very slow pace. For instance, the World Bank had initially indicated that poor countries had citizens living below 1 USD per day. This number has since improved to about 1.25 dollars a day(Kakwani & Hyun, 2006).
Causes of Global Poverty
The rate of unemployment in most countries in the world, and especially the developing countries has been attributed as one of the main causes of global poverty. In these countries, the youth form majority of the population thus having this productive group being jobless and idle leaves a country poor. The International Labour Organizations noted in 2008 that over 190 million people were unemployed globally, with the majority being the youth and women. Unemployment makes these population unable to even afford food provision in their households hence translates to another global challenge of starvation and hunger. It also has adverse effects on households' ability to provide even the most basic education and healthcare services to their families. Such poverty has also led to increased levels of illiteracy in most countries as children drop out of schools due to lack of school fees and increased mortality rates due to unaffordable healthcare insurance and services to curb emerging diseases (Vandemoortele, 2002).
Unequal distribution of the global natural resources is another cause of global poverty. In most countries, property ownership and national wealth is controlled by a few who are also in power. A few people get into political positions seeking personal gains and to fulfil selfish interests. The ability to rule and control wealth is vested in the hands of these few individuals who surround themselves with a circle of friends and technocrats. They form circles of power and are determined to protect their dynasties through controlling the nations' wealth, drafting international policies and contracts that benefit them. They grab massive pieces of land from poor citizens who are left to suffer in abject poverty, leave in slums and starve to death ass there are no lands to do farming.
Global solutions for global poverty reduction
Reducing poverty has been prioritized in most international global agenda. The United Nations has noted that one of the world's global agenda is to eradicate poverty in line with one of the Millennium Development Goals aimed at reducing the poverty rates globally by almost half by the year 2015. It has also argued that global poverty is an infringement to the human rights of social justice, which advocates for equality and non discrimination to the human race. Poverty derives people their worth and human dignity. "Poverty is the deprivation of one’s ability to live as a free and dignified human being with the full potential to achieve one’s desired goals in life" (United Nations, 2010).One of the emphasis made during the world leader's summit of 1996 was that of having the people in mind, as the core pillars in propelling international development( United Nations, 2006).
One of the global poverty reduction strategies being implemented is that of equal redistribution of resources and mass empowerment. The 2007 report on the world's social situation highlighted the support of decent employment as one of the global solutions to the poverty challenge caused by unemployment and in equality. Countries like Argentina and Korea have adopted employment schemes, through which their citizens help in building the countries' infrastructure while at the same time benefiting from paid forms of employment.
Countries are also making governance reforms to address the challenge of corruption that directly affects the economy as a measure to curb global poverty. This is evident in their election processes where they resort to electing political leaders who have demonstrated the will to alleviate the living standards of the people by putting in place measures to curb corruption and self interests in power that hinders the equal relocation of national wealth.
Others are working towards property rights to enable local citizens acquire assets like land that are critical to the sustenance of people's livelihoods. By having land and other assets, citizens can practice farming and also exchange the land as loan guarantees to enable them acquire the purchasing power needed to improve their living standards(Besley & Burgess, 2002).
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In conclusion, the world population is expected to rise to about 9billion people by 2050, majority of this number being from the developing countries. With such a projection in place, it is therefore critical to have poverty reduction strategies and measures in place as early as now, in order to avert even worse challenges in the near future. Even though the world governments have been striving to implement poverty reduction measures, most of them and especially in developing countries are yet to fully embrace and explore other possible solutions that will see global poverty as a thing of the past. Empowering the masses through education, providing an enabling environments for the youth to access employment and improving healthcare systems are amongst the key measures by government that will eventually lead to global poverty reduction by about half . Through quality education, the masses are economically empowered thus has a direct impact on the economic growth of a country. If this is implemented in each and every country, the global impact will be felt.