How to Eradicate Poverty?

Poverty (also called penury) is deprivation of common necessities that determine the quality of life, including food, clothing, shelter and safe drinking water, and may also include the deprivation of opportunities to learn, to obtain better employment to escape poverty, and/or to enjoy the respect of fellow citizens. According to Mollie Orshansky who developed the poverty measurements used by the U.S. government, "to be poor is to be deprived of those goods and services and pleasures which others around us take for granted." Ongoing debates over causes, effects and best ways to measure poverty, directly influence the design and implementation of poverty-reduction programs and are therefore relevant to the fields of public administration and international development.

Although poverty is generally considered to be undesirable due to the pain and suffering it may cause, in certain spiritual contexts "voluntary poverty," involving the renunciation of material goods, is seen by some as virtuous.

Poverty may affect individuals or groups, and is not confined to the developing nations. Poverty in developed countries is manifest in a set of social problems including homelessness and the persistence of "ghetto" housing clusters.

How to eradicate POVERTY?

Numerous methods have been adduced to upgrade the situation of those in poverty, some contradictory to each other. Some of these mechanisms are:

• Subsidized housing development.
• Education, especially that directed at assisting the poor to produce food in underdeveloped countries.
• Family planning to limit the numbers born into poverty and allow family incomes to better cover the existing family.
• Subsidized health care.
• Assistance in finding employment.
• Subsidized employment (see also Workfare).
• Encouragement of political participation and community organizing.
• Implementation of fair property rights laws.
• Reduction of regulatory burden and bureaucratic oversight.
• Reduction of taxation on income and capital.
• Reduction of government spending, including a reduction in borrowing and printing money.

Millennium Development Goals

Eradication of extreme poverty and hunger by 2015 is the first Millennium Development Goal. In addition to broader approaches, the Sachs Report (for the UN Millennium Project) ^[118] proposes a series of "quick wins", approaches identified by development experts which would cost relatively little but could have a major constructive effect on world poverty. The quick wins are:

• Directly assisting local entrepreneurs to grow their businesses and create jobs.
• Access to information on sexual and reproductive health.
• Action against domestic violence.
• Appointing government scientific advisors in every country.
• Deworming school children in affected areas.
• Drugs for AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria.
• Eliminating school fees.
• Ending user fees for basic health care in developing countries.
• Free school meals for schoolchildren.
• Legislation for women’s rights, including rights to property.
• Planting trees.
• Providing soil nutrients to farmers in sub-Saharan Africa.
• Providing mosquito nets.
• Access to electricity, water and sanitation.
• Supporting breast-feeding.
• Training programs for community health in rural areas.
• Upgrading slums, and providing land for public housing.