Ethics

Poverty can be defined as the state of having no means to afford essential human necessities such as food and clean water, clothing, good healthcare and shelter. Currently, poverty is the worlds most teething problem. Shah suggests that almost half of the world population lives on less than two dollars per day. In 2008, the World Bank placed the poverty threshold at 1.25 a day, with those who live below this line being in absolute poverty. Absolute poverty quantifies the number of people below a certain fixed poverty line, regardless of their race, nationality or even technological rankings.

Causes of Poverty
As a matter of fact, causes of poverty are so diverse, ranging from personal to international influences. For instance, laziness is attributed to be a major cause of the predicament to individuals. The world demands that people be industrious and therefore those who are just naturally lazy will usually find themselves miserable as a result of their incompetence.

In many cases, politics have resulted to appalling situations in most developing countries where this problem is immense. Poor political scene that is evident in most of the countries in Sub Saharan Africa has resulted to poverty crisis to thrive for decades. Consequently, the gap between the rich and the poor has continued to widen. Incompetent governing policies are also another hindrance to successive development in any given country (Balisacan and Fujisaki, 1999).

International political benefits is another contributory factor to poverty, which has led to a diversion of the accessible resources from domestic requirements to Western markets (Shah, 2010).This poses a great barrier to impartial development in any given nation, leading to deprived basic social services.

Effects of poverty
Poverty is usually associated with negative situations such as homelessness or poor quality housing facilities, lack of access to healthcare, violent acts such as human trafficking and prostitution, drug abuse and insecurity. One of the main consequences of poverty is sickness and mortality. There is an estimated worldwide mortality rate of over 24,000 children per day due to poverty (Shah, 2010). A person in a state of destitution is more vulnerable to poor health which leads to subsequent deaths.
It is also very evident that poverty has adverse effects on the academic outcomes of school children.

There has been an increased rate of school drop out cases, for teenage students living in poor communities. Moreover, under-equipped schools struggle so much to meet the requirements of their students (Parsons, 1988). This translates to insufficient education, which contributes to repeated cycle of poverty, thus inhibiting poor children from lifting themselves out of poverty.

In addition to this, poverty has far reaching psychological effects which include emotional problems to the individuals, such as depression, marital distress and low self-esteem. (Parsons, 1988).It is also important to mention that, poverty can result to mistreatment of the victims, depriving them of their rights. In most cases, the poor people are manipulated out of their desperation, through coercion by those with an upper hand.

Conclusion
Poverty is an issue of global concern. Due to this, a number of measures have been taken by many governments in the world as well as non-governmental institutions in an effort to prevent it. The government of the United States of America and other rich countries have been in the fore front in providing donations through funds and other resources to the poor communities in the world (Perry  and World Bank, 2006).In line with this, there are non- profit organizations that have initiated projects aimed at alleviating poverty in third world countries. This has seen construction of social facilities such as hospitals and schools, therefore improving the lives of those people in dire need of basic necessities.

However, greater improvements cannot be realized when bad governing policies are still intact. There is need for government institutions to lay down policies that will facilitate faster realization of economic development, especially in the third world countries where this problem is rampant (Perry and World Bank, 2006).If this can be implemented, then millennium development goals, which are still a big challenge in most of third world countries, will have been achieved.