The Illusive Nature of Poverty

Thanks to Cristina Vargas for sending the article by Dominic Liche at the Jesuit Center for Theological Reflection in Lusaka, Zambia. 

Overview:  Poverty is as old as humanity itself. Factors that contribute to poverty include heritage and status at birth, lack of access to opportunities that ensure that a person has what he or she needs, disease without good access to good healthcare, lack of informal or/and formal education so that one has skills to live a good life, hopelessness in life, unfair global relations and relations between the rich and poor, national policies that only benefit the rich. The fight against poverty is as old as poverty itself where people are continuously working hard to come out of poverty and communities and institutions working to help people come out of poverty. Despite these individual and institutional efforts, the intensity of poverty continues to deepen even when figures suggest reductions in numbers of the poor. Dominic Liche asserts that because of its complexity, poverty is illusive and difficult to fight when looked at in a simplistic, mechanical way.

REALITY OF POVERTY I often wonder what the world’s agenda is in fighting poverty in the world especially in Africa. When organisations, individuals, governments say they are fighting poverty, what really are they fighting? Whose poverty are they fighting? What are the measurements in determining that any strategy in fighting poverty actually works? Does one agenda in fighting poverty work across the globe? Who should determine how poverty should be fought – the person fighting poverty or the person in poverty? This last question is a very crucial one, given that in most cases, it is the person with the means and ideas to fight poverty that determines first, what poverty is, and second, how to deal with that poverty as defined by him or her.  CLICK HERE to read the full article.