Poverty is one of the serious issues faced by the world today.

Poverty is an economic condition which reflects that the available means are less than the needs. It does not have a universal standard. The standards for poverty vary in different societies. According to the report of the United Nations, there are over one billion people living from hand to mouth. Every country tries to solve the problems with the poverty in its own way. Some are quite successful in their fight with poverty while others are ably hardly to manage with it. Poverty also becomes a major social issue in most of the developing and under-developed countries especially in Asia and Africa. Poverty in a specific country directly relates to the economic and social conditions of that country. The mechanism that sees developing countries falling deeper and deeper into the poverty cycle is quite simply that of debt. Developing countries that take loans from the World Bank invariably end up not being able to service the debt properly. The IMF then steps in with a debt restructuring plan based on the Structural Adjustment Policies (SAPS) which to ensure debt repayment through a restructuring of the indebted country's economy. Effectively, such restructuring requires the indebted country to reduce spending on sectors such as education and health, while the debt repayment becomes a national priority, and the living standards of the people suffer as a result. In order to pay back the loan, the country is forced to increase its foreign exchange by increasing its export volume. In many cases, the most lucrative commodity to export is a cash crop or a plentiful resource that the country may have to offer, but since a number of countries are in a similar situation, the variety of crops and resources are relatively limited. Once the market is flooded with the crop or resource, the price decreases a benefit to the developed nations that are buying meaning that the developing nation has to increase its volume of exports even further. However, this is not always possible. While this process is occurring, the developed nations with strong currencies ensure that the exchange rates favor them at all times, so the developing nation has little chance of freeing itself from the downward debt spiral. The diagram below will demonstrate why developed country keeps its exchange rate high.
-As the exchange rate increases, the impact on agg supply may be very positive.

Australia for example, around 80% of all imports is used in the production process, and so when the dollar is strong it is more able to purchase these productive imports. This equates to lower costs of production.

In addition to gaining foreign exchange, governments naturally have to curb their spending, which means that certain facets of development are put on hold temporarily. Thus, as mentioned, are most likely to be the areas that affect the social fabric of the nation, rather than impact on any area that is likely to be beneficial in debt repayment. The 19971999 financial crisis in Asia came about mostly as a result of these practices. Economies collapsed under the pressure of debt repayment. Governments cut national spending and tried to rescue their ailing currencies, while the trade agreements favoring the international market left the small business owner unable to stay afloat. The crisis started in Thailand, which was technically bankrupted by the burden of debt, and soon spread to neighboring countries such as Indonesia, the Philippines, and Singapore. Luckily, all affected countries were able to resuscitate their economies relatively soon after the crash.

There are several ways to overcome the debt problem for the poor country especially. First, debt rescheduling schemes should be revised for both official and private debts. Overall, the framework of debt rescheduling should be geared to the support of the growth and development of debtor countries. The debt services should not be allowed to exceed 15 percent of the export earnings and the Gross National Product (GNP) of poor countries. This would enable the countries to obtain the much needed financing of structural adjustment programs, thereby improving their credit-worthiness. Partial cancellation of the external debts of developing countries, in particular the least developed countries affected by natural calamities, especially the drought in Africa which at least can help the country to recover from disaster. Another main problem why most of the country cannot pay back their debt is because rising interest rates. The current levels of international rates must be reduced to a level not threatening economic recovery in Third World countries so that they have ability to pay the debt. Education plays an important role in determining the extent of poverty in a given society, and unfortunately a lack of education sparks a cycle of poverty for an individual and his or her descendants that is extremely difficult to break again. There is not much difference in poverty levels between countries where education is compulsory and those where it is not, in the context of developing countries. In Africa, for example, quite a few countries make attendance at schools compulsory, although the legal age for leaving varies between 12 and 16 years of age, whereas Cameroon, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan and Zambia do not have a compulsory schooling period. Despite the differences, literacy rates and average school-leaving ages are equally poor across sub-Saharan Africa, and similarly, poverty rates in this region of the world are the highest. The cycle of poverty in this context stems either from a child being forced to leave school in order to work to assist the family unit in increasing their combined income, or from the family not being able to afford education for the child. Without the minimum requirements of basic education, progress in terms of work and income are difficult to achieve, so the individual remains trapped in a low-paying work environment. Many groups are starting to respond to this huge factor of poverty which is lack of education. The World Bank has already given over $33 billion to education-related projects. The United Nations Millennium Development Goals also feature education prominently, calling for countries to achieve universal primary education for their children, and also for girls to be given an equal opportunity in education. Global partnerships such as Education for All (EFA), launched in Thailand in 1990, are connecting organizations from the World Bank to UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) to spread education, especially in developing countries that are struggling with their education programs. If developing countries can offer good quality education to kids, the results will be tremendous. Education is considered a vaccine for HIV/AIDS. That means children are educated about the disease, they are much less likely to contract the disease. Literacy helps communication and reasoning skills in children. And most importantly, education can help children from impoverished families break out of poverty. For every year of schooling children have, their salary as an adult will increase by an average of 10% - whether they are a girl or a boy.

Other than that, overpopulation also is one ofthe causess of poverty. It may differ in several countries. Overpopulation itself is not an overt cause of poverty in developed countries. Japan for example, does not only have a large population to around 130 million people, but also an incredibly high population density of its relatively small geographic area, and yet poverty levels are particularly low in this country. This is because none other than Japan is a developed, industrialized country that produces huge quantities of food for its citizens and a highly successful economy to support the country financially. The diagram below illustrated how Japan can keep its people able to buy the output of the countrys production. When agg supply increases, the level of price will decreseas. This shows how increasing in production can lower the price of output. Indirectly, people can afford the output.

In contrast to this, Bangladesh boasts a very high population density with more than 1 000 people per square kilometre, based on a population of roughly 153 million. While nearly two-thirds of the labor force are involved in the agricultural sector, yet Bangladesh remains impoverished with 45 % of the total population living below the poverty line. The fact that most of the country is situated on river deltas and flood plains, and that regular flooding episodes render the agricultural land useless, has much to do with the country's relative food production deficit. Overpopulation worsen and amplifies the problems of poverty, even though a large family is seen as protection against poverty in many Third World countries. Having large families is important to many subsistence farmers, as more children equate to more hands to do the work of feeding the family. This phenomenon also stems from historical times when health care was at a minimum. This meant that a proportion of children would die in childhood due to disease or famine, and hence, the larger the family, the lesser the impact in terms of available hands to work. In addition, access to family planning tools and information is often very limited, with the result that unplanned, additional children put further stress on the family unit. Solutions to keep the human population balanced in the poor country have to be easily applicable at the grass-root level. Initiating a war or nuking the most populous areas in poor country for example, are best methods left by the Lex Luthors and the Victor von Dooms. But there are some much more make sense solutions which can be apply. First is through education. It is one of the most commonly agreed assumptions that lacks of education contribute more to overpopulation. A lack of education, coupled with poverty, gives rise to a simple theorem in impoverished classes which is more hands, more money. Unaware of the costs children involved, the poor classes seek more income through whichever way is possible. This leads to the requirement of more land, more food and more basic resources. Education would make these classes aware of the threats of overpopulation and would also provide them and their children better understanding, eliminating the more hands, more money theorem.

Second, through family planning program. While it may be considered inhumane to enforce family planning on the poor country, educating and raising awareness about it can certainly help. Often, misconceptions about the surgical processes related to family planning discourage the masses, especially the male contingent, from practicing it. In China around 1979, a one-child policy was introduced to control Chinas burgeoning population and reduce the strain on scarce resources. According to the policy as it was most commonly enforced, a couple was allowed to have one child. If that child turned out be a girl, they were allowed to have a second child. After the second child, they were not allowed to have any more children. In some places though couples were only allowed to have one child regardless of whether it is a boy or a girl. This policy is still in effect today. It is unusual for a family to have two sons. Meanwhile, many governments now sponsor family planning programs and clinics, a move that needs to be replicated all over the Third World countries. Poverty also caused by environmental degradation. Environmental issues or problems are more likely to affect the poor in the context of subsistence farming. In many developing countries, the poor attempt to support themselves through farming practices, so any environmental changes are likely to affect their crop output and hence, their food intake. The most probable causes of environmental impacts include desertification and soil-quality degradation, but global warming and extreme weather events can be as devastating. The impacts of these phenomena will eventually affect drinking-water supplies, shortages of building materials especially for shelter and related impacts on health. Soil erosion is a huge factor in poverty creation, as illustrated by the situation in Ethiopia. Although this country boasted relatively fertile agricultural soil in the 1960s and 1970s, overgrazing, deforestation and poor farming practices particularly in terms of planting on ill-suited slopes, have resulted in very poor soil quality that threatens the food production of the country today. Extensive and devastating droughts during the 1970s and early 1980s have exacerbated the problem and killed thousands of the country's subsistence farmers, pastoralists and indigenous nomadic peoples. The government's attempt at conservation has failed largely due to the unsustainable nature of the largescale projects. Thousands of hectares of sloped landscapes were cordoned off to be conserved but in the process, too much arable land was set aside for conservation projects, leaving the poor with nowhere to farm. Thus exacerbating the large poverty problem in rural Ethiopia. Soil degradation is another factor that both threaten food security and increases the number of people living below the poverty line. Of the 1.2 billion hectares around the world that have been identified as serious soil degradation hotspots, Asia and Africa have the largest proportions of this land. In West Africa, a direct correlation between soil degradation and child deaths has been established, with up to 30 % of children dying before the age of five in the areas with the greatest extent of soil degradation. Due to the nature and extent of soil degradation, it is difficult to judge the exact loss of arable land every year, but analysts estimate that it could be between 5 and 12 million hectares across the world annually. At this rate, some United Nations agriculture experts agree that Africa, for example, will only have a quarter of its current food production capabilities within the next few decades with which to feed its growing population.

The effects of environmental degradation which is global climate change have already been felt, particularly on the African continent. While global warming has warmed the African continent by about 0.5C in the last century, certain areas have experienced far higher temperature increases. Coastal Kenya, for example, has felt a temperature shift of up to 3C in some places, while in the north of the country, shrinking water resources have resulted in famine and war as conflicts arose amongst pastoralists regarding the control of the scarce water resources. The continent as a whole is facing a large-scale food crisis as a result of all these factors. In 2008 alone, more than 25 million people on the continent were directly impacted by the scarcity of food and had their livelihoods threatened as a result. Awareness and concern about environmental degradation have grown around the world over a few decades, and are currently shared by people of different nations, cultures, religions and social classes. Good governance reduces risks of environmental damage. This is done with environmental protection laws and government bodies to enforce them. Government business enterprises and the public services can model good environmental practice. Development needs to be much more mindful of sustainability than it has been in the past. International pressure comes from trading partners, the World Trade Organization, and financial and aid institutions such as the IMF, the World Bank, and the Asia Development Bank. There are both domestic and international institutions that work to assist, as well as to pressure or embarrass governments into environmental protection. A well-known international example of an environmental pressure group is Greenpeace. Greenpeace is a nongovernmental environmental organization with offices in over forty countries and with an international coordinating body in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Greenpeace states its goal is to ensure the ability of the Earth to nurture life in all its diversity and focuses its campaigning on worldwide issues. As a conclusion, a standard global measure of poverty line established by the World Bank which is $1 per day, yet there are as many as 1.4 billion people living in poverty with less than this level to survive. However, there are many countries around the world that have a national poverty line way below this mark. Interestingly, some Asian countries like Malaysia and Thailand have been successful in eliminating poverty within a span of 20 years! Vietnam and China seem to follow suit. Brazil has reduced poverty by 15% in 6 years while continuously reducing its economic inequality. These countries prove that there may be challenges in reducing poverty but, it is not impossible. Countries that are still struggling to achieve this goal are often marred by poor management and inefficient skills of its people. The problem with poverty is that it takes away the fundamental economic freedom for a person to make choices. To truly alleviate poverty, we need good financial management, better education system, appropriate family planning program and more strategic environmental care to improve the quality of economic such as increase the gross domestic product (GDP) of the country and human resources like increase in the human development index (HDI) as well.