CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

Defining Poverty

Much has been said about the meaning of poverty. There is no single
“correct” definition of the word but it has to be understood in relation to the
context in which it is used (Lister, 2004). Poverty has many faces, and it happens
everywhere in the world (Lusted, 2010). It has been described in so many ways
which varies from places to places and time to time.

When can one say that a person is in poverty? A person is considered poor if
his or her income falls below the poverty line, or poverty level. This is the
minimum amount of money in which an individual requires to meet the basic needs
(Lusted, 2010). However, the standard of living varies from one country to
another. What may be considered the basic need in the Philippines may not be
enough to satisfy the standard of living in the United States. What may be the
standard needs in the United States may be considered luxuries in the Philippines.
Because of this, the poverty line can vary in different societies.

According to Lusted, overpopulation, lack of education, unequal distribution

of resources, and environmental problems results to poverty (Lusted, 2010). There
are many other underlying causes of poverty but for the sake of argument, this
review of related literature mainly focuses only on these four listed causes. These
can be remedied by different types of economic, social, and environmental reforms
however, eliminating these underlying causes proved to be a great challenge for
both first world and developing countries.
 One of the most basic causes of poverty is overpopulation, or having a huge
number of people relative to the area that it occupies (Lusted, 2010). Resources are
naturally scarce in this type of setting. With too few resources to share, the
population may find it hard to allocate food, shelter, and jobs to themselves. It can
come to a point in which an individual will have to make do with less than what he
or she needs thus creating poverty.

Lack of education among individuals can also cause poverty. There are
several poor countries in which many people cannot read or write and have never
attended school. Without education, they cannot find sustainable work (Lusted,
2010). If an individual cannot read or do basic math, or if he or she cannot show up
for work and apply him or herself, he or she will not have a job. If that individual
is uneducated, he or she will advocate the culture of poverty (Hickman, 2015). In
poor countries, the government cannot afford to provide good schools. And even if
schooling is available, poor families may not send their children because they need
the children to work instead.

Environmental problems also contribute to poverty in developing countries.

Issues about the environment, and economics and social welfare of the people are
inter-related in the same way an organism interacts with its environment in an
ecosystem. However, the interconnectedness between humans and the environment
is often overlooked as there is this mainstream belief that for poor countries to
develop, environmental concerns have to be sacrificed, or is a luxury to address
once poverty is alleviated (Shah, 2005). The degradation of the environment can
have serious repercussions to the people. Example of this is deforestation. The
people may want to clear forested lands to utilize these for agricultural purposes.
This may seem like a good thing as more agricultural land would mean more food
thereby reducing poverty. However, there are several studies that prove the
positive correlation between deforestation and climate change (Tropical
Deforestation and Climate Change, 2005). Cutting down trees would lead to
climate change. This will then lead to droughts which will render the agricultural
lands barren and unproductive. The consequences of foregoing environmental
concerns may not be felt in the short run but the impacts will surely manifest
sooner or later.

Development Goals

Basic economics states that when a huge chunk of population is

experiencing poverty or living under the poverty line, the economy takes a serious
downturn. As a result, academics, policy makers, politicians, and concerned
citizens alike reached to an agreement that poverty should no longer be treated as
soft social issues that can safely be subordinated to more important and
fundamental interest in maximizing total economic output (Grusky & Kanbur,
2006). This mindset that poverty is an issue that needs to be urgently alleviated
lead to a worldwide consensus of creating a common and effective plan of action
that effectively address it. Thus, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) was
crafted and enacted.

In September of 2000, building upon a decade of major United Nations

summits and conferences, 147 heads of states and governments came together at
the United Nations Headquarters in New York City to adopt the United Nations
Millennium Declaration (United Nations, 2000). It was affirmed that billions of
people worldwide are subjected to the abject and dehumanizing conditions of
extreme poverty. Thus, the declaration committed nations to making the right
development – reduction of extreme poverty – a reality for everyone, and set out a
series of eight time-bound targets that have become known as the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs). (Millennium Development Goals).

The data and analysis presented in the report of the MDGs shows that this
concerted effort to fight poverty has yielded dramatic progress and unprecedented
developments among the poor countries. Extreme poverty has declined
significantly over the past two decades. The number of people living in extreme
poverty worldwide has declined by more than half, falling from 1.9 billion in 1990
to 836 million in 2015 with most of the progress occurring since the year 2000.
The standard of living has also increased as the number of people in working
middle class – living on more than 4$ a day – has almost tripled. This group makes
up half of the workforce in the developing regions in 2015 compared to only 18
percent in 1991 (United Nations, 2015).

The improvement in the global literacy rate of the youth over the years of
implementation of the MDG was also observable. The primary school net
enrollment rate in the developing countries has increased from 83 percent to 91
percent between 2000 and 2015. The number of out-of-school children of primary
school age worldwide has fallen by almost half, to an estimated 57 million in 2015,
from 100 million in 200. The effect of MDG on the improvement of primary
education in the Sub-Saharan Africa was the most evident compared to any other
region in the world. It achieved a 20 percent point increase in the net enrollment
rate following the implementation of MDG in the year 2000 to the year 2015,
compared to a gain of only 8 percent points between 1990 and 2000 (United
Nations, 2015).

The Millennium Development Goals also played a huge role in the reduction
of child mortality and improvement of maternal health in the millennia. The global
under-five mortality rate has declined by more than half, dropping from 90 to 43
deaths per 1,000 live births between 1990 and 2015. The reduction that was
brought upon by the MDG was more apparent in the Sub-Saharan Africa, having
an annual rate of decline that is five times faster during 2005-2013 than it was
during 1990-1995.

The 15-year effort to achieve the aspirational goals set out in this
Millennium Declaration may have saved the lives of millions and improved the
conditions of many more; the United Nations acknowledges the gaps that
remained. While the achievements that were made were undeniably obvious,
progress has been uneven across regions and countries, leaving significant gaps.
Millions of people are still being left behind, especially those who are the poorest,
those who are at the disadvantage because of disabilities, and those who are being
discriminated against the most because of their sex, ethnicity, and geographic
location (United Nations, 2015). Despite this, the globally agreed goals to fight
poverty should continue beyond 2015. The world’s governments poised to adopt a
new round of global goals to follow the 15 year MDG period. UN Secretary-
General Ban Ki-Moon has issued a report in the June 2012 Rio+20 summit
recommending that the world should adopt itself a set of Sustainable Development
Goals (Sachs, 2012). Using the progress that was made in the previous
development projects as a jumping point, the new set of SDGs were expected to
propel the world towards a sustainable trajectory.
 The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), also officially known as
Transforming Our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, is a set
of seventeen (17) aspirational “Global Goals” that calls to end poverty, protect the
planet, and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity. Spearheaded by the
United Nations, which involves its 193 member states, the seventeen (17) SDGs
are adopted by the world leaders (United Nations, 2015).

The Sustainable Development Goals are built on the previous development

goals known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The MDGs were
eight international development goals that were adopted by the United Nations for
the year 2002 to 2015. They were also the world’s time-bound and quantified
targets for addressing extreme poverty, and social and health issues, and also
sought to ensure environmental sustainability (Millennium Development Goals).
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