The complexity of poverty

There are many nations living in impoverished conditions mostly located in the continent of Africa and Southeast Asia. Their people live in extreme poverty yet even with the wealth attributed to their exportation of resources (like the Congo's vast quantity of gold, diamonds and timber and Nigeria's coastal oilfields), there have been no solutions to this problem. In reality, poverty is influenced by about three sources government action, outside forces and economic structure.

On the issue of government action, politicians within these impoverished countries lack the appropriate political experience. This is prevalent in African nations whose leaders come to power via military coup d'etats or from historical fame. An example of the latter would be when Robert Mugabe who has been in political power in Zimbabwe since 1987. Despite accounts of lost ballot votes, mistrust on security and accusations of racism including attacks on white foreigners (taste of their own medicine, eh?), he was supported by a grand majority of the people because of his part in his nation's apartheid and the social programs that raised the infant mortality rate. This allowed him to remain popular and guaranteed him a position in the dual government created in 2008 (all this due to domestic violence by his supporters). Overall, these freed countries chose their leaders based upon their contribution to the post colonialist period and in small cases out of military fear.

On external forces, these countries fall pray to natural disasters and wars. I hate to pick on Africa again so I'll be brief. After the civil war in Zaire, it was divided into the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (probably so its name would appeal to Western nations but that didn't work for East Germany's German Democratic Republic during the Cold War). As the nation tried to rebuild itself and resume trade, Hutu and Tutsi paramilitary forces from the neighboring Burundi and Rwanda spilled into the Congo and plunged the country into what became known as the African world war. Despite the ceasefire, the conflict continues to this day. Putting Africa aside, let's discuss Bangladesh. This nation is situated like the Netherlands for they both lie below sea level. Unfortunately, Bangladesh doesn't have advanced flood walls like its counterpart so its easy prey to violent storms like the infamous 1970 Bhola cyclone, which killed more than 500,000 people and led to estimated damages up to $86.4 million (1970 USD). Due to its geographical location, Bangladesh is hit with violent cyclones and mass floods every year. With this much damage, it's no wonder they're impoverished.

Finally on the subject of economic structure, this is prevalent in most post- colonial nations. First, a lesson on European history. After WWI, the Baltic states in particular Sweden, Finland and Norway executed large systems of state welfare programs, which would lower their unemployment rates and would protect them from the dramatic effects from the Great Depression. Why isn't that the standard system in all countries? For one thing, western nations view the idea of state welfare as socialist (the US still displays anti-socialist views on their own economy particularly during the relief programs launched during the 2008 recession). Second, the European occupiers of former colonies did not establish large scale industries which would industrialize those nations since the colonies were only meant to supply raw resources, which were to be shipped to the factories in Europe. Following the ideas of European industrialization, these countries tried to catch up in this present globalized economy by encouraging rapid urbanization in hopes that this would benefit big businesses. This failed as it increased unemployment and because of the number of foreign companies that already established themselves in the countries. The exception would be India, which was freed early from imperial rule after WWII and despite poor living conditions and religious strife between the country's Hindu, Muslim and Sikh communities, their quantity of resources which were exported to other Western counties helped propel it as a rival superpower to China (Hell, they both have space programs and desire to land on the moon so they act like the US and Russia did in the Cold War). Even though Nigeria follows the same economic policy on the oil trade, political corruption, high crime and ethnic strife hampers their economic development. In general, poverty is a very complex issue for there are three sources that contribute to it's rise, one of them being virtually unsolvable (external forces).