1. What is poverty?
Poverty may be defined in several ways depending on the point of focus. It relates to income, social and economic relativity, and social indicators. From an income point of view, people are poor when they are in a state where, “their income (or consumption) is less than that required to meet certain defined needs.” This definition however, does not adequately address society’s capacity to achieve a socially acceptable standard of living that may entail having some education, information, legal rights and infrastructure.
People or a country can be poor in relation to the level of development of the immediate environment. Poverty relates to lack of resources for production to afford a decent standard of living. Inability to access basic, but essential goods and services leads to both physical and mental dearth. It is important to state that female-headed households in most SADC countries, are especially disadvantaged due to lack of access to productive resources or because they are denied their rights to own resources such as land.
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