POVERTY

• Poverty is the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions
• Poverty


  Poverty is said to exist when people lack the means to satisfy their basic needs
• United Nations definition of poverty

  • Lack of income and productive resources to ensure sustainable livelihoods
  • Hunger and malnutrition
  • Limited access to education and other basic services
  • Social discrimination and exclusion
  • Lack of participation in decision-making
• Historically, poverty has been defined in monetary terms, using income or consumption levels
• Approaches to conceptualise poverty

  • Basic needs approach
  • Capabilities approach
  • Human development approach
  • Multidimensional poverty approach
• Poverty definitions by CHAMBERS (2006)

  • Income poverty
  • Material lack or want
  • Capability deprivation
  • Multidimensional deprivation
• Absolute poverty


  A state in which a person cannot meet their most basic needs
• Relative poverty


  A situation in which your income falls below a certain percentage of the national median income
• Extreme poverty


  A condition characterized by severe deprivation of basic human needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education and information
• Poverty statistics from the United Nations

  • 736 million people still live in extreme poverty
  • 10 percent of the world's population live in extreme poverty, down from 36% in 1990
  • 1.3 billion people live in multidimensional poverty
  • 50 percent of people living in poverty are under 18
  • 1 in 10 individual is extremely poor
• Burundi is the world's poorest country followed by Central African Republic, DR Congo, South Sudan and Somalia as the poorest. The richest countries are Luxembourg, Singapore, Ireland, Qatar and Switzerland
• 19 of the 20 poorest countries are all located in Africa. The first non-African country on the list is Afghanistan, ranked 15th
• Poverty in ASEAN countries

  • Myanmar has the highest share of population living below the national poverty line in the ASEAN region, with 24.8 percent in 2017
  • Indonesia had 10.1 percent of its population living beneath the poverty line as of 2021
• The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic pushed 4.7 million people in Southeast Asia into extreme poverty in 2021, as 9.3 million jobs disappeared, compared with a baseline no-COVID scenario
• Poverty in the Philippines

  • 6.1% of the population live on less than $1.90 per day
  • 26% live on less than $3.20 per day
  • 55.1% live on less than $5.50 per day
  • About 30 million Filipinos are poor
  • Over 5.6 million Filipino families living in poverty as of 2022
• Half of the poor in the Philippines live in rural areas. The poorest of the poor are the indigenous, landless laborers, fishermen, small farmers, mountain folk and women
• The average family income needed to meet the minimum basic food and non-food needs of a family with five members in 2021 was estimated at PhP 12,030 per month
• Regions in the Philippines with the lowest poverty incidence among families in 2021


  • National Capital Region (NCR)
  • Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR)
  • Region III
  • Region IV-A
• The Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) consistently figured with the highest poverty incidence among families at 29.8 percent in 2021
• Reasons for poverty


  • Lack of good jobs/job growth
  • Lack of good education
  • Warfare/conflict
  • Weather/climate change
  • Social injustice
  • Lack of infrastructure
  • Lack of good healthcare
  • High costs
  • Lack of government support/corruption
• SDG Goal 1: No Poverty

  • Reduce at least by half the proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty by 2030
  • Implement nationally appropriate social protection systems and measures for all
  • Build the resilience of the poor and those in vulnerable situations
  • Ensure significant mobilization of resources to provide adequate and predictable means for developing countries
  • Create sound policy frameworks to support accelerated investment in poverty eradication actions
• The World Bank approved a $600-million loan to cushion the coronavirus pandemic's impact on poor Filipino households
• Mahatma Gandhi: 'Poverty is the worst form of violence'