Question

a. Discuss the assertion that poverty is multifaceted.

b. Why do many African nations such as Ghana with abundant natural resources remain poor?

Answer 1

A.

Poverty refers to the situation where the people are very poor and cannot meet their day to day expenses on their own. Poverty is the global problem that is multifaceted. It means that poverty is there in each country, but there are different reasons or basis of it. For example, poverty is specifically high in those ethnic communities that are black in nature in the USA. Though, poverty is also decided on the basis of income level that can spread among all the communities. Though, the income level set for the poverty level is different for different countries. Hence, people considered as not poor, may be considered as poor in another country.

Further, poverty can be further spread poverty among more people and can move from one generation to another generation. For example, a poor family lacks resources to give good education to kids, unable to give health care and cannot even feed properly. It makes kids to remain uneducated and unable to get a good job. It makes them remain poor and cycle continues from one generation to another. Hence, poverty has different dimensions, based on ethnicity, social class, income and very less ownership of resources.

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B.

These nations remain poor, because of lack of good & sound policy planning, regulatory framework and more prevalence of economic rent, corruption and exploitation of local resources. Since the country is poor, then the local government and people go for the short term policies that want to generate revenues on a short term basis. But, while doing so, the nation loses more than it gains. As a result, country remains poor and continue to be exploited by the big MNCs.