Poverty is one of the greatest problems in the world today. Living in poverty means living without security, having no prospect of a better future and being unable to exercise any form of control over one’s life. Poverty means being defenceless and at the mercy of diseases, natural catastrophes and violence.
Around 1.2 billion people – one fifth of humanity – live in extreme poverty. They have to get by on less than one US dollar per day.
Poverty has many faces and many causes. Periods of drought, which destroy the harvest, wages which do not cover the cost of the bare necessities of life, governments, which take account only of the interests of the rich.
Poverty may be the result of the high levels of a state’s indebtedness and the unjust international trade regulations. Corruption, wars, epidemics, natural catastrophes and high levels of population growth also contribute to the creation of poverty.
One of the most significant causes of poverty is the inequality of women. In many societies women are disadvantaged compared to men in almost every area of life. As a consequence, 70% of the people in the world who live in poverty are women and girls.
