RURAL AND URBAN POVERTY

RURAL AND URBAN POVERTY

Poverty is the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material
possessions. Poverty is said to exist when people lack the means to satisfy their basic needs. In this
context, the identification of poor people first requires a determination of what constitutes basic needs.
These may be defined as narrowly as “those necessary for survival” or as broadly as “those reflecting the
prevailing standard of living in the community.”

Poverty is the state of having few material possessions or little income. Poverty can have diverse social,
cultural, economic, and political causes and effects.

Rural poverty refers to poverty in rural areas, including factors of rural society, rural economy, and
political systems that give rise to the poverty found there.

Causes of Urban Poverty

 Less maintained infrastructure: roads, communication line

 Inaccessible markets
 Gender parity
 Lack of technology such as internet
Marginalization of women: disadvantages in terms of legal and social protections, with women
and marginalized communities frequently having hard times accessing land, education and other
support systems that help with economic development
 Lack of improved access to credit and income
 Lack of essential services: Health care, schools, water,
 Heavily dependence on agriculture
 Climate change crises
 Productive group leaving rural areas to go urban areas in such of green pastures
 Geographical barriers
 Lack of non-motorized load-carrying wheeled vehicles (handcarts and wheelbarrows)
 Low levels of education
 Lack of opportunities for acquired skills
 Social isolation due to inadequate roads and poor access to information
 Politically excluded by the government and in some cases they hardly get resources meant for
their own development making
 Absence of enough industries to employ people
 RURAL AND URBAN POVERTY

URBAN POVERTY

Urban poverty is, in a sense, an overflow of rural poverty. Because rural people in the low-income group
find themselves 'unemployable' in the urban environment as a result of their deficient education and
training, they continue to be poor. According to the Urban Management Programme of the UN Centre
for Human Settlements (Habitat), urban poverty is caused by the following

Causes of urban Poverty

 Lack of adequate employment

 Lack of appropriate urban services
 Insufficient social integration
 Poor quality, overcrowded housing
 Risk of forceful eviction.
 Lack of safe, readily available, water supplies.
 Poor provision for sanitation, drainage and solid waste collection.
 Lack of access to healthcare, emergency services and policing.
 Difficulty accessing government school
 Structural violence
 Lack of opportunities in areas that one has trained in
 Lack of political will, poor leadership and governance
 Individualism
 HIV/AIDS and other fatal diseases

Impacts of poverty

 Insecurity
 Depression, stress and other mental diseases
 Rise of crime rates
 Mushrooming of slum settlement
 Imbalanced population
 Brain drain
 Poor savings and investment

QUESTION TO ASK

Therefore with all this causes of poverty in the rural and urban areas how can we combat poverty?