Exploring the link between poverty and human rights in Africa

Abstract

Poverty remains one of the greatest challenges facing humanity in this century. Despite the fact that the world is blessed with natural and human resources, a significant number of people, particularly in developing countries, still live in abject poverty. Recent developments show that efforts at combating poverty across the globe are yielding positive results as there seems to be a significant decrease in the number of people living in extreme poverty in poor regions. The picture is not all rosy, however, as there remains a great cause for concern as the world’s poorest people still live in developing countries. An estimated 736 million people worldwide – the majority in South Asia and Africa – live in extreme poverty.1 Indeed, half of these people live in five countries, namely, India, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ethiopia and Bangladesh.2 Almost 1,4 billion people are living in extreme poverty.3 The poverty situation in many developing countries, particularly Africa, is exacerbated by famine, conflict, the lack of access to basic services such as health care, water, sanitation and electricity, unemployment and corruption. While the majority of persons living in extreme poverty are found in developing countries, some of them also live in developed countries.