What is poverty and how does it affect and take lives of millions? Poverty is the state of being poor, and lack the means of providing material needs or comforts. Unfortunately, I have to say that this is still happening in many parts of the world especially in Afghanistan. Partly, this has to do with the policies of rich countries. In Europe, every year thousands of tons of wheat, butter and other food items are destroyed in order to maintain high stock prices for their farmers! These could have been donated to people with their needs for food in Africa and other countries; instead it is used to fertilize more money, which causes the deaths of more lives.

Poverty is taking lives of millions each week! One billion, three hundred million people in this world do not have access to drinking clean water. As a result, eighty percent of illnesses are caused by drinking contaminated water. Poverty remains a reality, as conflicts rise between countries. Inequality is not just bad for social justice; it is also bad for economic efficiency. The gap between the rich and the poor is widening.

More and more people are living below the poverty line. We also can say that Poverty is a lack of goods and services necessary to maintain a minimal adequate standard of living. The definition of the term adequate varies, however, with the general standard of living in a society and with public attitudes toward deprivation. No university accepted definition of basic needs exists because poverty is a relative concept. In poorer countries it means living at the brink of subsistence, while in our country few improvised families confront starvation, although   many suffer from undernourishment. A key issue in the area of poverty is inequality.  Inequality has been a problem in all societies. No society distributes income evenly.

Despite all the conceptual and technical problems of measurement, the government has devised a widely cited poverty index that reflects the different consumption requirements of families depending on their size and composition, on the sex and age of the family head, and on whether they live in rural or urban areas. Based on past surveys, the designers of the poverty index determined that families of three or more persons spend approximately one-third of their income on food. Thus, the poverty level for these families was, therefore, set at three times the cost of the economy food plan. For smaller families and persons living alone, the cost of the economy food plan was multiplied by higher factors in order to compensate for the larger fixed expenses of smaller households. The poverty thresholds are updated every year to reflect changes in the consumer price index but overall rises in standard of living.  

Here is a fact to take in mind; did you know that twenty percent of the world's population takes in eighty six percent of the world's goods while eighty percent of the rest just get the remaining fourteen percent? Inequality is also described by a combination of wealth, which turns into a force of political power. One of the main reasons for endless poverty has been in order to maintain this power. In U.S, the top one percent of the population receives more money than the bottom forty percent! This is not where it ends, for the last twenty years the share of income going to the top one percent is still increasing, while the poorest forty percent is decreasing at a rapid pace.

The ratio of poverty in our homeland Afghanistan is very high it is because if the inconsistent economical infrastructure bases. The Afghan government does not really take the necessary precautions for the purpose of stabilizing the living standards of our nation. It has been approximately a decade that the international community which is helping the Afghan nation in order to overcome the living inconsistency, yet again in some particular remote areas in our country they still suffer from lacking the basic needs of a simple life.

The problem which needs a serious consideration is indeed the gap between rich and poor strata of our society, there is not a balance which keeps this gap tightened and keeps this gap to the least possible distance. Child labor is another social catastrophe which is founded from poverty and low earnings. Today it seems as if everyone has a theory about fighting poverty, now it is not necessary to be moving in the theoretical plane. Our country did not have successful anti-poverty programs that were not effective back a decade ago, not effective because they were not based on these six points: affiliation, bonding, categorization, discernment, employment, and freedom.

But a key element in all of them is personal involvement and challenge, both material and spiritual if folks a hundred years ago could help others to move out of poverty, and then turn their attention to the next group of immigrants and impoverished, why can't we? Did they have more time than we do? No, even though we feel stressed, their work days on the average were longer. Did they have more money? No, we are far more affluent as a society now. Did they have more space in their homes, so they could take in another person and we cannot? No, on the average our houses are far larger.

These are the questions which are normally not considered by our social and political workers, there is not really big difference between us and the foreigners, we Afghans are quite rich regarding natural resources and geographical borders and states.

The problem is with our managements that cannot utilize our treasures which are in the shape of natural resources. There is no transparency and honesty among the administrations and ministries. Let’s assume if we had a better and transparent government we would be far better and richer nation in the world. The challenge which is really down under and makes our people suffer is poverty and the gap between the rich and poor stratum of our community. Can we tackle this humongous obstacle? This is question which remains with no response.