Nigeria, with its prodigous oil and natural gas reserves, has the potential to be one of the most affluent places on the planet, were it not for the rampant corruption that defines it. Instead, it is the 20th poorest country in the world1. Much like the guanxi of China, Nigeria practices prebendalism—the use of high-level positions to gain personal wealth. In other words, people exchange money for political favors, which of course creates a greedy and corrupt society. The extent of this fraudulency is such that most of Nigeria's oil wealth is sucked up by one per cent of the population, while more than 60% falls below the poverty line. In fact, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has determined that 92% of Nigeria lives on less than one dollar a day2. Meanwhile, it is estimated that in the past 50 years, three to four hundred billion dollars have been stolen by government officials.
In rural Nigeria, up to 80% of the population (as compared to 70% of Nigeria as a whole3) live below the poverty line, despite their fast-growing agricultural economy4. According to Nigerian author Anthony Maduagwu, it is in places such as these where we can find the solution to Nigeria's economic predicament. In his article “Alleviating poverty in Nigeria”, he says, “only the poor understands poverty and it is also the poor that know how their poverty could be alleviated... the fact is that the poor usually have quite good perceptions of their own needs and goals and of what would be required to satisfy and make progress toward them”5. He made the case that while government-funded “poverty alleviating programmes” help poverty rates in one place, the create poverty in another6. This is supported b...
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...now, and God for the poor”21. This individualist belief is not an optimistic one. If anyone needs a voice, it is the poor, and the current government officials seem unlikely to be swayed by religion.
Works Cited
1.Christen, Robert Peck; Rosenberg, Richard & Jayadeva, Veena “Financial institutions with a double-bottom line: implications for the future of microfinance” (July 2004)
2.CIA World Factbook
3.Hauss Book
4.Junger, Sebastian “Blood for Oil” Vanity Fair (2007)
5.Kashi, Ed “Curse of the Black Gold” Powerhouse books © 2008
6.Maduagwu, Anthony “Alleviating Poverty in Nigeria” Africa Economic Analysis (2000)
7.“Microfinance” http://en.wikipedia.org/microfinance
8.“Rural poverty in Nigeria” http://www.ruralpovertyportal.org/web/guest/country/home/tags/nigeria
9.“UNESCO on Poverty in Nigeria.” http://allafrica.com/stories/201001280540.html
10.Wood Book
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An important term that is cropping up everywhere nowadays is “Microfinance”. It is important for every person interested in the field of finance to be aware of this term, as in the coming days Microfinance is expected to be one of the brightest and the most appealing sector of the Indian Economy.
Growth in Africa is not enough for its people to grow, which is leading to poverty and hunger in Africa. Today Africa is one of the leading countries having poverty and economic problems. One half of the Africans live below the poverty line which leads to low human development in Africa. The main cause of poverty in Africa is a problem in its economic system and environmental factors. Because of poverty people of Africa remain hungry as they don’t have enough money to buy their food and their basic needs. Some of the African countries have less poverty rate than others due to good government and economic system in those countries. Most of the African is facing challenges to survive and keep their family healthy.
In conclusion, sometimes actions take place that changes a person’s outlook on life and as you can see poverty is one that can have a huge effect on not only one person, but also the people around him/ her.
Poverty is one of the greatest problems facing South Africa. South African families live in very unsatisfactory conditions. The South African government works hard to bring down the rate of poverty but it also seems to increase as they try.