What Would You Do With $500 000 000 000?
We’re always told that we should “fall in love with the problem, not the solution” but after hearing a different perspective, I think we should:
“Fall in hate with the problem.”
Many, including our computers 👇 say that falling in love with the problem allows for the best suited invention for that issue rather than creating a mediocre solution to a problem you’re not passionate about.
But this new take gives a reasonable twist.
Typically, when we hate a problem, it angers us to a point where we experience the internal need to do something about it. We become passionate and create a solution that is actually best suited for the problem. We invest more time into understanding the problem and talking to real people undergoing that situation to then create a real solution to solve the problem and heal the wound rather than a band aid solution to cover up the wound.
After hearing this perspective, I began to think about problems which angered me.
I then thought, how exactly are you supposed to find a problem that angers you? From climate change to cancer, they all anger me, but how do I determine which is the most pressing?
This is until I heard a talk from Benjamin Todd.
In this talk, he mentioned how each year the government spends over $500 billion trying to make the world a better place, but only a miniscule fraction (less than 0.01%) goes towards research to identify how to spend those resources most effectively.
This is called global priorities research.
Some of the money is given towards cancer research and others to rebuild destroyed areas. So, he posed the question,
If you could spend $500 000 000 000 to solve any world issue, what would it be?
Todd mentioned that neglected yet solvable problems are good to work with and I instantly thought of poverty.
Now, throwing money at the problem won’t directly help, but using this money with in-depth research, we could reshape countries, economies and the lives of billions of people.
Basics
689 million people live in extreme poverty, surviving on less than $1.90 a day where children and youth account for two-thirds of the world’s poor. I’ve looked deep into how the access to healthcare can shift these impoverished nations, check out my paper👇
However, this short article will dive into overall global poverty and its endless cycles.
Improshived, developing countries, marginalization, inadequate resources. All of these words are thrown around when talking about poverty, so what actually is it and why is it such a complex problem?
Poverty is not knowing when or how hunger will end, or if it ever will. Poverty is not knowing how to read or write and communicating solely with skills learned from your parents. Poverty is being sick and not having a bed to rest on, a nearby doctor to or proper medications and treatments to recover. Poverty is being unemployed and living every second in survival mode rather than with an optimist mindset.
All of these things which we typically take for granted are the things that people in these circumstances don’t even know of.
Overall, there are many different forms of poverty, but when we’re looking at global or region-specific poverty, it can narrow into two main sections: cyclical and collective.
Cyclical poverty is poverty that is widespread throughout a population but only lasts for a limited duration. Let’s go back 90 years to the 1930s. In North America, this was the time for widespread unemployment, limited resources and living on the edge; all known as the Great Depression. However, the populations exited this time within a decade.
Collective poverty refers to the permanent insufficiency to secure and basic needs; however, this can become so general that it is used to describe the average life in a society. This is what we think of when hearing the term global poverty and typically occurs in areas such as Asia, most of Africa, the Middle East and parts of South America
COVID-19 and its Impact
We always hear that poverty affects billions of people. But exactly how many? Where are these people? Has the number increased or decreased? Well, ever since the pandemic, practically everything has changed since global poverty has increased in certain aspects but decreased in others.
Globally, the number living in extreme poverty has declined by 26% in the past 25 years. However, the pace of change is now slowing down as the pandemic crisis reverses the decades of progress.
It’s warned that the economic fallout from the pandemic could increase global poverty by almost half a billion people.
Wait, what?
This means that 8% of the total human population could go into poverty after the pandemic, and this would be the first time that poverty has increased in the past 25 years.
Now, before the pandemic hit, global poverty was steadily decreasing, but I wondered how. Let’s check out a short case study from the MPI in India.
Within 10 years, the number of impoverished people in India fell by over 271 million people. This is a MASSIVE gain. India went from 635 million impoverished people to 364 million people in poverty.
But how?
According to the MPI, one specific cause was targeted. Sanitation.
The number of people engaging in open defecation went from 550 million to 250 million in just four years. This was due to a new sanitation program introduced by the Prime Minister which decreased the need for immediate widespread healthcare and allowed the families to focus on education and other factors for survival.
This means that over ¼ of a billion people no longer have to fight this extreme impoverished battle. Although there is still lots of work to be done, this is progress.
However, this varies from country to country. Sanitation rights worked for India however, they must also consider next steps and food resources as well as bringing the people out of poverty and into good jobs and schools.
The Complexity
So, if a sanitation program and some widespread help substantially decreased the extreme poverty in India, why not replicate this in other countries on a larger scale?
Poverty has been around for centuries and the main reason that the progress has been so slow is due to its complexity. We call poverty “multidimensional” since it’s made up of more than just a lack of income, but it’s made of multiple aspects. With a quick google search, this is what you see:
Now, there’s only seven causes on that list, but I promise you that there is so much more but this is the problem. The fact that there are so many aspects makes it difficult to pinpoint where to look at and the connections and cycles between them all.
Once one family member falls below a set line, it creates a domino effect. Progressively, the education levels become lower, the training for employment decreases, the criminal activity increases and as the generations pass, a bleaker future becomes more and more evident.
However, with this, poverty becomes more relative depending on the starting point and environment. For example, in the United States, the poverty threshold for a family of four is a little over $26 000 per year. For a family of four living in absolute poverty in a low-income country, that amount of money is over 36 times what they are forced to survive on each year.
However, this is also why there is not one cookie-cutter solution. Each continent, country and even village faces their own problems.
The Domino Effect
So, what actually causes poverty?
There are external and internal factors contributing to this one problem however they each relate to one another.
🏫 Lack of education: no school/education → the lack of education is not addressed → children cannot learn → depleting their future chance of employment → cannot improve from their current standpoint → cannot exit poverty
🏥 No safe infrastructure: No safe infrastructure and places for children to play → more vulnerable to being abused → get caught up in gangs and drugs → falling deeper into poverty
🚿 Water: no access to clean drinking water → more prone to water-borne illnesses → become sick → don’t have access to healthcare, hospitals, treatments → remain sick and become weak or die
💦 No access to nearby clean drinking water → children have to walk miles for water → children have no time for educational and family opportunities → revisit the lack of education cycle
This are simply four cycles. Check out the list of some causes and cycles of poverty.
Lack of shelter
Limited access to clean water resources
Food insecurity
Physical disabilities
Lack of access to health care
Unemployment
Absence of social services
Gender discrimination
Government corruption
Environmental circumstances such as natural disasters, droughts, limited resources or depletion of natural resources
Due to all these everlasting cycles, families become stuck in this life and it becomes passed onto generations where the children become hopeless for another lifestyle. In their minds: their grandfathers lived in poverty. Their fathers lived in poverty. So they must live in poverty.
Although there are programs and organizations providing relief, the pandemic has struck these nations hard and with band-aid solutions, they might not ever get out of poverty.
These people in poverty have the right to a life outside of what they were born into, and with our help, they can have that chance.
