SHORT NOTES ON POVERTY & MEASURES TO REDUCE POVERTY


Poverty means the state of being extremely poor  or the state of being inferior in quality or insufficient in amount.
It is a condition where people's basic needs for food, clothing, and shelter are not being met. Poverty is generally of two types: (1) Absolute poverty and (2) Relative poverty.


Absolute poverty or destitution involves a lack of basic necessities including food, clothing sanitation,  shelter, health care and education.

[The countries should try to eradicate (remove) this from the country]

Relative poverty or economic inequality occurs when people have less income than other people in the country/unable to participate fully in the normal activities of their society.
[The countries should try to reduce this with in the country]

Measures to reduce poverty
The major measures to reduce the poverty are 1) improve health, Education  and industrialisation (especially of primary sector).
 
Health: Long run economic growth can only be achieved through increases in capital (factors that increase productivity), both human and physical, and technology. Improving human capital, in the form of health, is needed for economic growth. Impart knowledge on the cost effectiveness of healthcare.

Education: By increasing the education facilities,   create awareness in the people to get their rights. More technical education enables people to start their own technical business and many of them can go overseas to earn foreign exchange for the country.
   
Industrialization: Most of the developing countries are depending on primary sector  with the majority of its labor force  associated with it and generate the major  percent of   GDP from it . The latest and state of the art technologies for agriculture are still not being used in these countries.  Industrialization can change the fate of the people. If government start an industrialization with incentives [ such as tax free zones ]to install new industries labour to move  to these industries. This will force land owners  to pay extra wages to get their work. Similarly it will also push them to use the latest technology to improve the yield. It is a reality and  experience that when an industry starts in a rural area; the wages in that locality increases because the people have the opportunity to work in that industry. 

Following are some other measures to reduce poverty.
Welfare Projects, Compulsory education, Genetically Modified Food Production, Small Loans, Debt Relief measures, Empowering Women,  Human rights & Gender Equality,  Projects on Climate Changes,  End Foreign Aid,  Good Governance,  Good tax systems, Law for  Minimum wage   and  Policies to reduce unemployment such as job creation schemes, stimulus to aggregate demand, Active labour market policies, re-training schemes, and Welfare-to-work schemes. These measures also can help to reduce inequality of income and wealth and thereby reduce the poverty .