Effects of Poverty on African People’s Lives

If you had all the money in the world to buy anything you want, what would it be? Many people would say a car, a mansion, make a business, clothes, shoes, food or anything that would satisfy their needs. But would you ever think of using that money to help the ones in poverty with resources that can help them continue living sustainably. One of the most common countries that deals with poverty is Africa. Many Africans in poverty lack in resources such as food, clothing, shelter, education, and medication to live a sustainable life. According to the World Bank, estimates shows that the rate of poverty decreased from 56% in 1990 to 43% in 2012. About 63 million people in Africa are living in poverty today. The ones who are being extremely affected by this way of living are the African children. They are more in higher risk of developing diseases and starving to death. Also, many children are not able to go to school to get an education because they cannot afford to attend.

Poverty in African worsens as the time passes by. The poverty in Africa is hindering Africa’s productivity and economic development. When it comes to poverty, food is the most common resource many people don’t get enough to live off of. People starve to death not having enough food to feed themselves or find anything else to that may not be actual food to eat. Africa has the highest prevalence of undernourishment, estimated in 2016 to be 20% of the population. There are many people out this world who cannot find food to feed themselves or even worse, a whole family. Many of Africa’s agriculture are not able to harvest any products because of droughts and other extreme weathers. Which makes it hard for people to receive food, and it becomes a problem in productivity development. Not many products of food are being sold because there isn’t a lot to go around, which causes starvation. Or sometimes the prices of the produce are too expensive that they are not able to afford buying food. According to the World Bank, in 2013, 42% of the population of sub-Saharan Africa lived on $1. 90 or less per day. Making it difficult to buy food at that amount. Many of them go days without even eating something or sometimes they find something simple such as leaves, insects or other resources to substitute actual food.

About 34% of the population in Africa suffers from malnutrition and starvation. It’s sad knowing that families are not able to eat at all because they don’t have the money to buy food or just can’t find none due to weather conditions. In poverty areas health is also one major problem. People are forced to live in environments conditions that can make them sick. When someone gets sick, it’s impossible to even to seek for help. When people see that you don’t have the money to pay off medications or the equipments being used, they won’t touch you or attend you at all. The people of Africa are not able to afford the proper healthcare needed to stay alive. Diseases like HIV/AIDS, malaria, polio and other diseases are more likely to affect any adult and children in poverty. Children who are in poverty are most likely to get infected with a disease and die because they don’t have the opportunity to pay off those medical bills. The spread of these diseases increases more in Africa because of the people who don’t get the help to get better their condition. Have you ever seen a video or commercial on social media or television of a child in Africa with a swell stomach?

The swelled stomach is called Kwashiorkor. It is a severe form of malnutrition, caused by a deficiency in dietary protein. Children in Africa are most likely to have that condition because they lack nutrition of food. Children who live in poverty don’t really get the education they need to get in order to learn. These children cannot afford to attend because they don’t have the resources to use or they have to attend school miles away from home and can’t make it to school. Africa has the highest rates of education in the world. About 43% of children in Africa are not attending school. Children who don’t go to school lack on information they need to know in order to know about their surroundings with more knowledge. The majority of gender group who do not attend school are mostly girls. According to UNICEF, “studies have shown that educated mothers tend to have healthier, better-nourished babies are more likely to attend school; thus, helping break the vicious cycle of poverty. ” Some areas in Africa do provide education for students. But the majority of schooling are poor education. There are few teachers who do not really educate students to read and write, which causes children to not really learn at all. Education in poverty is a really less fortunate topic for children in Africa to learn about many things that can be useful in their lives.

As a whole, poverty has so many effects on people’s lives. The lack of resources a person needs in order to survive is very minimal to many. By including this information about poverty in Africa it should give a more detail image of what poverty is and how it can affect the lives of many people, especially young children. In many parts of the world, poverty lack of resources includes food, medication for health and supplies to get an education.