POVERTY AND HUNGER

Poverty
• poverty is a complex and
contested concept
• Poverty is lacking sufficient
food, shelter and clothing to
maintain ‘physical efficiency’
• Absolute poverty: a condition
where a person does not have a
minimum amount of income
needed to meet the basic
needs over an extended period
of time
 At what level do people become absolutely
poor?
 when they live below the poverty line (poverty threshold,
poverty limit)
Poverty Line:
• PL: minimum level of income necessary to meet basic needs
 The World Bank: the global poverty line was living on less
than a dollar a day
 In 2008: $1.25 a day rather than $1 a day
 In 2015: $1.90 a day rather than $1.25 a day
• Standards set for AP are the same across countries
 Adv: it makes comparison easier
 Disadv: that makes PL quite arbitrary
 Poverty
• Relative poverty: people lack the minimum
amount of income needed to maintain the
average standard of living in their society
• low income relative to others in a society
• Relative poverty line => Those with less than
60 per cent of median income are classified as
poor
 Poverty
• Relative poverty differs across countries and
over time
• poverty is a social and not only physical
phenomenon
• Relative poverty => the poor is the ‘less well
off ’ rather than the ‘needy
 Poverty
• 2 main approaches explain
poverty differently: the
mainstream and
alternative approaches
 agreement on the material
aspects of poverty such
lack of food, clean water &
sanitation..
 disagreement on:
- the significance of non-
material aspects
 Poverty: The mainstream approach
• Poverty is a condition suffered by people who
do not have enough money to buy food or to
satify their basic needs
• Poverty is seen as an economic condition
• Developed countries have regarded poverty as
one of the main characteristics of the Third
World => provide justification for the developed
countries to help develop the Third World by
promoting further integration into the global
market
 Poverty: The critical alternative
approach
• Poverty: a situation suffered by people who
are not able to meet their material & non-
material needs
• the emphasis is not only on money but on
spiritual values and community ties
• the UNDP makes a distinguish between
income poverty and human poverty
 UN Definition of Poverty
• “ Fundamentally, poverty is a denial of choices and
opportunities, a violation of human dignity. It means lack of
basic capacity to participate effectively in society. It means
not having enough to feed and cloth a family, not having a
school or clinic to go to, not having the land on which to
grow one’s food or a job to earn one’s living, not having
access to credit. It means insecurity, powerlessness and
exclusion of individuals, households and communities. It
means susceptibility to violence, and it often implies living
on marginal or fragile environments, without access to
clean water or sanitation”

(UN Statement, June 1998 – signed by the heads of all UN

agencies)
 UN Definition of Poverty
• “ Fundamentally, poverty is a denial of choices and
opportunities, a violation of human dignity. It means lack of
basic capacity to participate effectively in society. It means not
having enough to feed and cloth a family, not having a school
or clinic to go to, not having the land on which to grow one’s
food or a job to earn one’s living, not having access to credit.
It means insecurity, powerlessness and exclusion of individuals,
households and communities. It means susceptibility to
violence, and it often implies living on marginal or fragile
environments, without access to clean water or sanitation”
(UN Statement, June 1998 – signed by the heads of all UN
agencies)
 Poverty
 Poverty is not having a job

 Poverty is hunger

 Poverty is lack of shelter/home

 Poverty is not being able to see a doctor – no access to medical

treatment

 Poverty is losing a child to illness brought about by unclean water

and poor sanitation

 Poverty is fear for the future

 Poverty is powerlessness, lack of representation and freedom

 Facts About World Poverty
• An estimated 1.3 billion people live on less than $1.25 a
day and 80% of the world population lives on less than
$10 a day
• According to UNICEF, 22,000 children die each day due to
poverty
• More than 750 million people lack adequate access to
clean drinking water
• 1/4 of all humans live without electricity —
approximately 1.6 billion people & 3 billion have no
access to sanitation
• Nearly 1 billion people are unable to read a book or sign
their names
 Hunger
• For most of us, being hungry is the feeling we get if
we do not have our breakfast or lunch
 But what about, for hundreds of millions of people
who do not have enough to eat ??
 They do not know when they will have their next
meal
• Hunger: the condition where both adults and
children cannot access food consistently and have to
reduce food intake, eat poor diets and often go
without any food (Dillon and Marquand, 2011)
 Hunger
• For some people in the world,
hunger last all day, every day…
• On average, a person needs
about 1800 kcal per day as a
minimum energy intake
• Hunger => tired, unable to
concentrate, ill…
• Hunger=> an ongoing
phenomemnon in today’s world
 What is the reason of hunger?
• What is the reason of hunger? => 2 schools of thought
answer this question differently: The mainstream approach
& the alternative approach
1) The mainstream approach
 the reason of hunger: overpopulation
 the relation btw human population growth & the food
supply=> population growth exceeds the growth in food
production
 there are natural limits to population growth=>if limits are
exceeded, starvation is inevitable
 this approach tries to find ways to reduce the fertility of the
human race
 What is the reason of hunger?
• The world population =>
from 6 billion in 1999 to 10
billion in 2050
• Nearly all of the most
populous countries are in
the Third World=> they must
adopt strict family-planning
policies to limit their
population growth rates
 What is the reason of hunger?
2) The alternative approach:
the reason of hunger: distribution
 Acc to the alternative approach, the
mainstream one:
 is too simplistic in its analysis and neglects
the main factor of food distribution
fails to explain => despite the huge increase in
food production per capita, this has not
affected people’s life who experience chronic
hunger
 What is the reason of hunger?
The alternative approach:
the Third World countries
produce much of the world’s
food but most of this food is
consumed in the Western
world
1/3 of the world’s grain is
used to fatten animals
rather than food, lands are
used to produce crops for the
biofuel industry
 What is the reason of hunger?
 to understand hunger in the world,
the factors that determine how food is
distributed should be considered
• Another explanation of hunger:
(Amrtya Sen, 1981)=> hunger is not
always directly related to reduction in
the level of per capita food availability
 although there is enough to eat, people
do not have enough to eat (food
available in the shops but not enough
money to buy)
 Facts About World Hunger
• 11.3% of the world’s population is hungry=>That’s
roughly 805 million people
• They are hungry because they do not have land to
grow food or money to purchase it
• Nearly 98% of worldwide hunger exists in
underdeveloped countries
• While hunger exists worldwide, 526 million hungry
people live in Asia.
• Almost 1 in 4 people in Sub-Saharan Africa is
chronically hungry
 MDGs
 Poverty and hunger moved up the global political agenda at
the beginning of 21st century=> Ex: the UN’s Millenium
Development Goals (MDGs)
 In 2000, the UN agreed the MDGs. These aim to:
 eradicate extreme hunger and poverty;
 achieve universal primary education;
 promote gender equality and empower women;
 reduce child mortality;
 improve maternal health;
 combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases;
 ensure environmental sustainability
 develop a global partnership for development
 MDGs
• These goals were supposed to be met by 2015
• Despite some success at the beginning of the millennium,
none could be achieved entirely
• People living on less than $1.25 a day in the developing
regions;
 nearly half of the population in 1990
 It dropped to 14 per cent in 2015
• More than 1 billion people have been lifted out of extreme
poverty since 1990, BUT
• At the global level more than 800 million are still living in
extreme poverty
(http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/poverty.shtml)
 Poverty-Hunger Cycle
• “The poor are hungry
and their hunger
traps them in
poverty.”
• Hunger is the
number one cause of
death in the world,
killing more than
HIV/AIDS, malaria,
and tuberculosis
combined.