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Time To Join The Movement That Ends Poverty

By Nana Kwaku M Asamoah
Opinion Time To Join The Movement That Ends Poverty
SEP 21, 2018 LISTEN

"We must have high aspirations for the poor especially now -- because low aspirations can literally be deadly for them. We must listen to the aspirations of the poor and lift up our own to meet them," Dr Jim Yong Kim, current president of World Bank Group, concluded in his speech on 16th October 2015 in Jamestown, Ghana. This was a speech he delivered to mark the global lunch of the "Poverty In A Rising Africa" Report and to commemorate End Poverty Day. Dr Jim Yong Kim reminded Ghanaians and people of the world that, "For many people, ending extreme poverty in the world may seem like an impossible dream. There’s the old saying that the poor will always be among us. I’m here to say that is not true, that we can and must be the first generation in human history to end extreme poverty in the world." This movement to end extreme poverty is not just a mere social trend, for some it is an issue of social justices and perhaps a sign of personal virtue; a moral obligation. It embodies the conscious decisions of many individuals to step into history and lead their societies to change its course. Poverty, the cancer at the heart of so many of the world’s problem, has existed since the beginning of recorded history. There's nothing peculiar about poverty. There's no society on earth that hasn't been poor before and probably there is no group of people whose ancestors were not at one time poor.

And many a time, poverty is caricatured as an individual phenomenon and by and large, the result of an individual’s laziness, immorality and irresponsibility. But in Ghana today, individual responsibility is overemphasized. This is done to the point where the effect of root causes of poverty shaped by society and beyond the control of the individual is ignored. About 21 percent of Ghanaians are living in poverty. Many of these people do not have access to proper shelter, clean drinking water, better health care services, a job that provides income and are not well educated. Efforts by these individuals - who haven’t been equipped to make the most out of opportunities - towards gaining access to the basic needs of life is often otiose due to the lack of help and support. This is reflective of the fact that poverty is viewed as an individual's choice. Yet a child born into a poor home or a home characterized by wide range of societal barriers on a daily basis is significantly likely to grow up and live in poverty than the child born into a wealthy home who naturally had a head start in life. This illustration elucidates how poverty is in large part due to social structure. With this insight, people live in poverty because they find themselves in holes they didn't ask for, thus, we should be careful about blaming the poor for their fates.

It is the consideration of “social structural influences like inequality and transmitted poverty between generations” as root causes of poverty coupled with the thought that “we all pay the price for poverty” that emanated for a global action on poverty, embodied by global institutions like the World Bank and United Nations. It is this consideration that steered the movement that reduced the poverty rate by more than half in just 20 years in Ghana (from 52 percent in 1991 to 21 percent in 2012). And it is this same thoughtfulness that currently guides the movement -- a call to action for the poor, rich, young and old alike but presently dominated by the youth – in Ghana and the world at large to end extreme poverty.

Certainly, this movement to end extreme poverty is fueled by the knowledge that the injustices, difficulties and distress faced by the poor today need not continue into the future. Ideals can change. Cultures and institutions can change. Destinies can change. That is what unites the poverty eradication advocate of the past to the young poverty eradication advocate of the present. It is the energy of the youth coupled with the intellectual grasp of the promise and imperative of individual economic liberation, impelled by a passion to see injustice vanquished and social protection ensured. An effective combination, indeed. The young Ghanaian of today travel a path that has been blazed by great Ghanaians of the past. We have inherited much, but the work is far from over. It has fallen to our generation to follow that path, as our forebears did before us. The status quo cannot, and will not, be the status quo forever; that is the nature of change. The destiny ahead of us is the destiny we chose to create. A previous generation mobilized to achieve independence by opposing British imperialism and to achieve our current democracy by opposing military rule. It is with such determination that this current generation will use to efface poverty.

So, if you believe in empowering and helping the poorest people in our societies. If you want a government and a country free of corruption, good quality schools that inculcate in youth basic academic skills with perhaps many trade skills and you understand that none of that is possible without the eradication of poverty. If you believe we can achieve the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) goal 1 and beat poverty. If you believe that the movement to end poverty is not just a movement for social justice but also a movement of moral responsibility and you want us to be the generation that ends poverty. If you want these things, then it is time you joined the movement to end poverty. It is never too late. Let us not leave this fight for generations ahead. We can and we must be the first generation to end poverty.

Writer:
Nana Kwaku M Asamoah
[email protected]

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