Salim Hezam

Clint Johnson

English 1010

July 31, 2017

How to Solve Poverty?

Poverty is when the people do not get money to improve themselves. They cannot send their

children for education. There are a lot of diseases because there is not good health care. They

cannot get treatment for the diseases. The people cannot marry because they do not have money

to help other people who live with them. They cannot have families. If they make children they

will increase their poverty. They cannot help their children. The poverty will continue for the

next generation of children.

The poverty does not give the children a chance to complete their education. They cannot

improve themselves. When the people are poor they cannot improve their land. For example, in

the Netherlands and Denmark they have just one million cows but they export all the products

from the cows. They export butter, cheese and milk to all the world, especially to the Middle

East and the poor countries. They export to Africa which has more than 5 million cows. Who

is better? Why they do not improve themselves?

In Iraq the Iraqi government exports more than 4 million barrels of petroleum and more than 3

million barrels of gas per day. That means more than $100 billion income for the government,

but we see that always the people more than 40% are under poverty. More than 5 million people

travel outside Iraq as immigrants or refugees to other countries in the world. Some people travel

because there are some wars but other people travel because of the poverty in Iraq.

How can the people improve themselves and eliminate poverty in the poor countries? Who can

help do this?

World Bank
The World Bank tries to eliminate poverty in poor countries. They believe they can invest money and this will

improve health. USAID is an organization that takes money from the World Bank to help the people build new

hospitals and take only a little money from the people for their services. The World Bank gives money to the

United Nations to buy medicine for the people. The World Bank also gives money to improve the land and the

agriculture. The money is to make small businesses. The farms in the poor country will produce more food for

the people. When the health care of the people improves and there are more businesses, they will give good

health for the people and they can go to work.

This is the intention.

Here is a problem. When the World Bank gives money, the corrupt governments take the money and put it in

their personal pockets. Later the World Bank will ask for the money with interest. The money that is due will

become double after a few years. And the poverty will be increased by double. This happened in some

countries in middle east in 1980 to now.

Governments of Poor Countries

Sometimes the government of a poor country gives money to the people to improve the situation of the people.

When the people have money, they can have families. The government gives money to open schools and make

good education. This gives information for how to grow animals and how to export their products. When this

happens, the people improve themselves. This situation happened in some country in Africa.

Here is a problem. Many times, the government of a poor country is corrupting. The government puts money

in their pockets. They do not give it to the people. Sometimes it is corrupt businessmen who steal money

through corrupt business practices and send this money outside the country. They may send their money to

Great Britain, for example, to build houses for themselves there. The money goes to another country. In

another example, the government gives money for investment but when the contractor builds the project, the

project fails because the contractor does not complete the project or does a bad job. The government official

who gave the money to the contractor received a kick back so he does not report the incomplete project. The
author has a personal example of this issue. In Iraq, the government spent more than $40 billion to build

electric infrastructure to provide the power for the people in Iraq but because there was corruption more than 14

years ago they not build the project. Today this gives the people only 2 hours per day of power.

Rich Foreign Countries Invest in Poor Countries

Hillary Clinton believes USA can eliminate poverty in USA by giving money for care of children, for food

stamps and health insurance. There has been a drop in the poverty rate in the USA and fast economic growth.

Rich countries in the world, such as the USA, believe that they can go to the poor countries and put investment

there to eliminate poverty. They invest money because they see a lot of manpower and a lot of land. They want

to do good for agriculture. They invest to build hospitals and for treatment of disease. This makes the people

strong to go for work. Sick people cannot go to do anything and complete project. Also, rich countries invest

in schools and colleges. They believe this is a good idea to create knowledge about business management,

about agriculture and petroleum and open good opportunities for the people to work. This is to eliminate the

poverty. Here is a problem. Again, it is corruption especially in the poor countries. The money goes to the

government and the government makes small projects only. For example, the government builds clinics instead

of hospitals. This cannot cover for all the sick people. I have seen this in Iraq. There is not enough medicine in

the hospitals in Iraq. There is electricity in the schools for only a short time. This is because of corruption. The

contractor gives a kickback to the government official that has responsibility to give money for projects. Then

the contractor does not have enough money to complete the project and the project fails. In 1990 in Iraq the

hospitals and the electricity was good, but in 1979 the economy became bad. Projects were not completed.

This is because Saddam Hussein was president at this time. Money from rich countries does not help poor

countries when there is corruption.

 My Opinion

The first enemy for the humanity is poverty. It is a social problem and we should be fighting the poverty by all

the ways we have because all the problems in the world are coming from the poverty.

I believe there are three causes of the poverty. One cause is disease which causes the workers supply of the

society to be less productive. Another cause is the ignorance which means the poor people no get good job

and salaries. They work simple work then going to same cycles. Another cause is the corrupting in the

governments and businessmen in poor countries.

The way to fix poverty is to have hospitals so all poor people can go to hospital for little money. Then build

schools so all poor people can go and learn skills and get good jobs. The problem is the corrupt in the

government and the corrupt businessmen. The answer for poverty is that no country or organization

give money. Rich countries send their own workers to build hospitals and schools. They no give money to

poor countries.
 Works Cited

Jomo Kwame, and Anis Chowdhury Inter Press Service Jun 2, 2016
http://www.ipsnews.net/2016/06/is-good-governance-key-to-eliminating-poverty/
Gillian B. White. Poverty Compounded the Atlantic website, April 16,2016
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/04/how-poverty-compounds/478539/

Fewer, but still with us; the War on Poverty Economist, Apr, 2017, pp. 55 SIRS Issues Researcher

Bjorn Lomborg, The Low Cost of Ending Poverty CHICAGO Apr 19, 2017, n.p. SIRS Issues
Researcher.

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/low-cost-of-ending-global-poverty-by-bjorn-lomborg-
2017-04

Hillary Clinton, My Plan for Helping America's Poor New York Times, Sep 21, 2016, p. A.27, SIRS
Issues Researcher.

https://www.pinterest.com

Charles Kenny, End Poverty in All Its Forms Everywhere 2014, p. 4

https://unchronicle.un.org/article/goal-1-end-poverty-all-its-forms-everywhere

TAYLOR PRINSEN, 10 SOLUTIONS TO POVERTY BORGEN MAGAZINE, JULY 2, 2014

http://www.borgenmagazine.com/10-solutions-poverty