2. Poverty
Poverty, a word we all will think about immediately when less developed
countries, or perhaps we call it : Third World Countries are said to us.
These less developed countries such as Bangladesh, Ethiopia.
These countries have very low gross domestic product (GDP).
For example Ethiopia has a GDP per capita of $700. This means that on
average, a working person earns $700 a year. This is much lesser than
what we have in Singapore. In Singapore we have a GDP per capita of
$100 000.
In the following slides, I will talk more about what contributes to poverty
in many countries.
Even though a country may be developed, parts of the country may still
be less developed and is suffering from poverty.
Many reasons can contribute to the poverty of less developed and this
can be assessed with a tool called human development index (HDI)

3. Causes of poverty takes into regard
•Economic well-being
a) GDP per capita
b) Employment opportunities
c) Employment structure
•Health of the people
a) Life expectancy
b) Infant Mortality Rate
c) Access to health facilities and clean water
•Education
a) Literacy rate

4. GDP per capita
GDP per capita as I have mentioned, is the total amount of money a
country earns divided by how many people are working. Which indicates
that the locals have higher purchasing power. They are able to afford
more basic necessities and luxury items, thus increasing their standard
of living(SOL). High GDP means that government has high revenue to
finance local development projects such as improving on the existing
infrastructure or building new ones such as roads, schools, houses.
Countries with low GDP per capita would cause their government not
able to finance local development projects, which would in turn result
them in plunging into poverty.

5. Employment Structure
Most of the working population in developed countries work in the
tertiary or quaternary sector and the goods produced are more
value –added than goods produced by the primary sector. This
results in them having a higher revenue which generates a higher
tax revenue for the government which they can finance local
development such as investing in industrial projects and thus
raising the country’s level of development.
If a high % of the working population in a country are employed in
the primary sector, the amount of revenue would be lower thus
resulting in lower tax revenue and that the government cannot
finance local development, resulting for that country to be less
developed and if nothing is done soon, the country would plunge
into poverty as well.

6. Employment Opportunities
Employment opportunities are important as well.
When there are high employment opportunities, more people will be
employed. This in turns increases the GDP per capita. With higher GDP
per capita, people in the country would be able to afford more goods and
services. The demands for these goods and services will then increase.
This improves the SOL and Quality Of Life(QOL). Businesses start to earn
more money from these huge demands and they start to expand to meet
the demands. More jobs are therefore created which will result in higher
employment opportunities.
If there are low employment opportunities, less people will be
employed, decreasing their GDP per capita and decreasing the SOL and
QOL of the people. Resulting in slow progress of the country’s
development.

7. Life Expectancy
Life expectancy refers to the amount of years a person born in a
country is expected to live. The higher the life expectancy of a
country, the more the country will earn more money as when the
country has a larger population will have more people in the work
force, resulting in a even higher GDP per capita
More goods and services will be produced and this generates
higher tax revenue for the government to finance local
development projects.

8. Mortality Rate
Mortality rate refers to the rate at which the number of babies less than
one year of age dies, for every 1000 live births in a year.
Which a low infant mortality rate, more babies will survive and be able to
grow up healthily and will help in the long term of increasing the workforce
in the future. If there were to be a high mortality rate in a country, the
country would have a lack of manpower in the workforce in the
future, which results in the country earning less revenue the government
would not have enough revenue to finance local development projects to
increase the country’s level of development.

9. Access to health facilities
and clean water
With access to health facilities and clean water, the locals would be
able to much more healthier and would not fall sick very easily which in
turn saves money. The locals have access to adequate amount of food
as well. With these health facilities, a healthier workforce would lead to
high work productivity as less people fall sick. More people can go out
to work, earn an income and have high GDP per capita. More goods
and services will be produced and this generates higher revenue for
the country. The Government will have more revenue to finance local
development projects to advance their countries to be more developed.

10. Literacy Rate
Literacy rate refers to the percentage of adults above 15 years old in a
country would can read and write.
Less developed countries have a lower literacy rate as most of them work as
farmers or fisherman. Most families prefer to let them children to work with
them rather than sending them to school. They are also poor and cannot
afford to send their children to school. Many of them are also lowly educated
and thus do not see the importance of education.
If a country has a high level of literacy, the labour force is highly skilled and
educated which increases productivity. The workers can also be trained to
acquire necessary skills needed in the economic sector. When they can read
and write, they will be more proficient in using advanced technology like
computers and increase the efficiency of their work. With this they will have a
higher position in their company and receive better pay and can afford a
higher SOL. Being able to read and write also gives them a wider job
employment range as they are able to work in the secondary, tertiary and
quaternary sector which produces highly value-added products bringing in
more profit and revenue

11.  I think that the factors above are very important for a government to think
about. These factors will then help prevent poverty as these factors are all
interlinked. If there is one missing factor they do not care about, their country
would most likely plunge into poverty. With higher GDP, more tax revenue
would be generated. These factors are factors that have to be taken into
consideration carefully as they can raise the level of development in a
country or bring them to poverty. For example, in Philippines, a mountain
called: Smokey Mountain is just unsuitable for living. The name comes from
amount of smoke that is produced and the amount of rubbish there. The life
expectancy rate there like around 40 with no access to health care and
clean water. Most of them are also illiterate and they all work in the primary
sector producing lower GDP per capita decreasing their SOL and QOL.
Therefore, I think that we Singaporeans are very lucky to be living in a very
developed country and that we have a high SOL, QOL and GDP per capita.
We should treasure what we have and cherish it, not whine so much if we
have little problems.

12. Done by: Terence Ho Yan King
Nicholas Lim
Lim Jia Kai
Copyrights: Google
Wikipedia
http://www.hottnez.com/the-10-poorest-countries-of-the-world/
My background knowledge