Discuss about the Causes And Factors That Affect The Poverty In Zambia.
Every human being desires to survive, prosper and grow and wants to live without hunger, fear, and suffering. An individual always tries to find out ways by which their life could be better and then tries to achieve those means. At present, 1.4 billion people consist one-fifth of the global population, are not able to fulfill their basic necessities consisting food, clothes, and shelter. The highest segments of global poor are children, women, and men living in rural areas. These are farmers, herders, migrant workers, fishers, the artisans and home-grown people whose regular struggles to fulfill their basic needs capture everyone’s attention (Nations, 2018). One of the highly poverty affected countries is Zambia in South Africa, where 64 percent population is living in poverty. This essay will be discussing the causes and factors that affect the poverty in Zambia (Kabuya, 2015).
Zambia is popularly known as the Republic of Zambia, a landlocked country of South Africa is facing sharp rising in poverty, where every four in five people are not getting proper food, clothes, and living. The highest percentage of poverty prevails in a rural area where 89 percent of the total rural population is suffering from the conditions which cause the death of individuals. The reasons for rural poverty are multidimensional and complex which involves culture, gender, climate, social policies and markets (Goff & Singh, 2013). Some of the major reason of poverty in the Republic of Zambia can be considered as follows:
According to World Bank, there are two contextual factors which are directly linked to poverty: the first one is the arrangement of economic growth is not equal to some in relation to populations and some sectors. Another factor concludes that economic growth has not resulted in increased incomes of poor, enough to raise them out of poverty conditions. World Bank further explained causes to describe these two factors broadly, related to political, economic and institutional areas, which affects poverty among rural population (Carvalho & Nsemukila, 2013).
In Zambia, economic growth programs have traditionally been focussed on the urban areas and capital formation industries like transport, textiles, mining, and construction. But the majority of the poor originates their livings from small sectors like agriculture, fishing and sectors I which growth and development opportunities have not been introduced for the improvement. Further, the output of the sectors like commercial agriculture and mining, having high levels of ownership fails to convert into household gains and income (Bigsten & Tengstam, 2010).
Another cause is linked to the geographical context of development and growth. As per the analyses, urban areas have been grown in terms of the development of markets, shifting to cashless transactions. Whereas the poverty affected population tend to reside in rural areas which are not even connected to markets, schools, hospitals so that an individual can use basic facilities required for living. The rate of poverty in the agriculture-related areas is more than 80 percent. Even though Zambia is having a lot of water and land still it is facing food insecurity at very high level. The main reason for this problem is the insufficient policies and resources provided by the government for both food production and its distribution. Food production does not contain more notorious products which are required by the people who are affected by poverty. Food distribution policies are also not centralized to the areas suffering from diseases and poverty. It results in increasing level of loss of life and also has a direct impact on the poverty (Ng, Kan, Lim, & Ting, 2013).
One of the main reasons of poverty in Zambia is the corruption channelized by the government and deficiency in utilizing the public resources in the development of the poor. Government policies and budget are not centralized to poverty as shown by the national budget of Catholic Commission. External debt is also a reason for poverty in the Republic of Zambia as the country is repaying more than $150 million yearly loan to set off the external debt due to which health, education, and other services are not getting enough finance to develop the livelihood of poor (Alkire, Jindra, Robles, & Vaz, 2016).
Zambia has the highest rated of brain drain syndrome in the world. Highly educated and trained personnel like a scientist, teachers, doctors, administrators are professionals are migrating to another country paying high incentives and remunerations. If this personnel is given good incentives to stay in Zambia and work for the government or business development then there will be chances of poverty mitigation. Similar to brain drain, AIDS/HIV has affected a large number of potential women and men of the country. Most of the HIV affected people are in their prime years like the 30s and 40s. The country is losing its population in their early ages that are creating an educational gap. In order to eliminate poverty, a country needs healthy population which can contribute to the growth of people as well as economy. Likewise, illiteracy is a huge limitation to removing the poverty in the country as the majority of the population cannot even read and write. Education is one of the major contributing elements to the economic development that cannot be ignored. The government of Zambia has not done much effort to mandate education practices in Zambia. Many of the Zambians do not go for further studies because of insufficient funds and opportunities (Ochieng, 2016).
One more factor that contributes to the poverty in Zambia is Tribalism, which includes giving preference and opportunities to the people of similar tribes. The existence of tribalism eliminates the chances of development of economy because people of different tribes are downgraded and not provided equal opportunities. Due to tribalism, deserving personnel is not able to utilize their skills in removing the poverty in Zambia (Green, Sissons, & Lee, 2017).
Poverty can only be decreased by introducing strong governance and institutions and equal allocation of resources. In Africa, strategies designed to fight against poverty are not wholly implemented because the financial resources allocated ends up by the corrupt individuals, it indicated the existence of corruption in governance. Corruption creates more poverty and leads to an imbalanced society. In most of the African countries including Zambia, people have huge areas of unutilized or underutilized land. This is because of lack of education and thinking of following traditional ways of doing things. Some landowners just use their agricultural land to grow crops only for their survival and do not sales those in the market. This is a major contributor to the poverty of Africa. For improving this condition, the government is required to introduce basic education and training programs related to farming techniques and to make understand the farmers that they can get a fair value of their crops by selling them in the market. This will also help in increasing their standard of living and removing poverty (Korankye, 2014).
It can be concluded that poverty is considered as a sin to any economy and when its level is high in both urban and rural areas than it can become a danger to the existence of an economy. Above mentioned problems are the main reasons for rural poverty in Africa. These causes cannot be eliminated overnight as these most of these reasons are based on the proper functioning of governance. Since poverty is in the severe state in rural areas of Zambia, it is required to make agricultural activities more effective by improving transport facilities and facilitating fertilizers to farmers. The government should realize efficient budget expenditure strategies to finance more social services in the country. Health sector services should be improved as it helps in marinating human resources of the nation. The education system is required to be developed by facilitating free education to the poor so that they can become educated and help the country in elimination poverty.
References
Alkire, S., Jindra, C., Robles, G., & Vaz, A. (2016). Multidimensional Poverty in Africa. Retrieved April 24, 2018, from Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative, ODID: https://www.ophi.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/OPHIBrief40_Africa_Engl.pdf
Bigsten, A., & Tengstam, S. (2010). Renewed Growth and Poverty Reduction in. Zambia Social Science Journal, 1(1), 1-28.
Carvalho, M. A., & Nsemukila, B. G. (2013, October 28). Update Of The Situation Analysis Of Children And Women In Zambia. Retrieved April 24, 2018, from Unicef: https://www.unicef.org/zambia/Updated_Situation_Analysis_of_Women_and_Children_In_Zambia_part1.pdf
Goff, M. L., & Singh, R. J. (2013). Can Trade Reduce Poverty in Africa? Economic Premise, 114, 1-5.
Green, A., Sissons, P., & Lee, N. (2017). Harnessing Growth Sectors for Poverty Reduction. Economic and Social Research Council.
Kabuya, F. I. (2015). Fundamental Causes of Poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa. IOSR Journal Of Humanities And Social Science, 20(6), 78-81.
Korankye, A. A. (2014). Causes of Poverty in Africa: A Review of Literature. American International Journal of Social Science, 3(7), 147-153.
Nations, U. (2018). Rural Poverty. Retrieved April 24, 2018, from https://www.un.org/en/sections/issues-depth/rural-poverty/index.html
Ng, A. H., Kan, F. K., Lim, A. K., & Ting, T. M. (2013). Poverty: Its Causes and Solutions. International Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 7(8), 2471-2479.
Ochieng, C. M. (2016). The Poverty Of Development Strategy in Africa. The African Technopolitan, 5, 1-181.
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