Political Corruption and Empowerment

The Progress movement or as many refer to as the Progressive era, was a time frame where Americans joined in varying groups to advocate reform across the United States. To elaborate, Progressives believed in widespread change for child labor, industrialization, government, racial reform, and women’s rights. Countless stories of corruption in these areas were brought to light in the Progressive era mostly due to the published writings of Muckrakers. Muckrakers, were journalists who wrote for popular magazines that attempted to expose corrupt political activities from their investigative journalism. Furthermore, I will discuss and compare these groups and their attempts for changes in the rights of child labor, women, acknowledgment of corrupt government practices, racial relations, and industrialization reform.

Promises not Kept: Poverty and the Betrayal of Third World Development by John Isbister is a balanced, penetrating, and exciting account of why most people on the planet are poor, who has betrayed the promise for social change, and what we can do about it. Isbister gives a superb overview of third world development. He challenges people in developed nations to accept their share of responsibility for Third World stagnation and examines and analyzing international development issues. Promises not Kept offers provocative answers to the question of increasing world poverty.

Kleptocracy is defined as a state controlled to benefit an individual or small group who use their power to gain “a large fraction of society’s resources” to use for themselves. Kleptocracy “obstruct[s] development” of countries because the money taxpayers entrust to further develop their country through projects such as schools or infrastructure, becomes diverted to certain people for their own personal gain. Daron Acemoglu, Thierry Verdier, and James A. Robinson, writers for the Journal of the European Economic Association, established that kleptocracy runs rampant in “many developing countries.” As a result of this corruption, countries suffer “highly inefficient economic policies” and “expropriated the wealth of their citizens.”

It’s well known that elevated and unrelenting poverty is excessively found in rural areas, with isolated rural areas experiencing the utmost poverty. Mammen and Lawrence (2006) state that time limits enforced by

When discussing the issue of poverty and ‘the poor’, it is crucial to identify and explore the forces that lead to the social exclusion of the poor rather than focusing on the characteristics of these individuals. By focusing on these forces, it becomes easier to identify and explore possible ways to lessen poverty, empower the poor and alleviate social exclusion whereas focusing on the individual will not create a solution.

Unlike America where we are considered a developed country, many parts of the world are still considered as developing countries. These countries are called developing countries because they lack political stability and proper economic development. Countries in the South East Asia and parts of Africa are all categorized as developing countries. All these countries share one major element in common—poverty. Without essential resources, many people living in these countries are living in poverty. Poverty affects the lives of the citizens in these countries, especially young women. In these developing countries, poverty prevents proper education and effective health services for young women.

When we attack poverty on many levels, bringing together aid and education, community and economic development, and bringing empowerment to individuals, women and children, then we can begin to see real change in the communities and society. However, society is strutted in such a way that not all

The 0.40 increase in CPI from 2000 to 2001 should be compared to a similar change; from 2008 to 2009, the CPI dropped from 3.6 to 3.3. The only equivalent change in the time period of these surveys would be 2014 to 2015, where the CPI dropped from 3.5 to 3.1, but Corporación Latinobarómetro does not include a 2014 survey, which makes it impossible to find equal measurements. Between 2004 and 2005, preference for democracy increased from 54% to 59%, despite an increase in corruption. Preference for authoritarianism decreased from 16% to 13% and ambivalence about regime type decreased from 36% to 24%. These results show that even when there is an increase in corruption, there is not a decrease in preference for a democratic regime. Likewise,

Currently, many organizations are giving hand in order to solve these problems in the countries, still the progress is not completely done and many of victims are suffering from injustice treatment. Rural Poverty area in Peru is another controversial problem of freedom from want. From the statistic of Rural Poverty Portal website, nearly one third of population’s condition is below the standard of poverty. Eight million of Peru citizens remain in poor condition. The groups of people who mostly suffer from poverty are indigenous people who live in original rural areas. As a result, rural people decide to migrate to urban areas, which offer more favorable opportunities for them. Today, three quarters of citizens are living in the urban areas. The factors of rural poverty are illiteracy especially among women, lacking of essential services, inadequate agricultural research and financial services, ineffective animal and plant health service, poor transportation, and insecure right to land. Clearly, rural areas in Peru currently require significant support from the government and supportive organizations. Rural people now usually are a victim of human trafficking because of crucial

Due to conflict and migration of male population from the rural areas to urban areas, feminisation of agriculture is increasing rapidly. Even poverty is becoming more feminised due to growing disparities between women's and men's access to household resources in the context of socio-economic change and increase in the proportion of poor-resourced female-headed households (Leach and Mearns, 1991, cited in Shivakoti Aryal and Zoebisch, n.d.). Hence, poverty is the greatest challenge in the development process of the country. Alleviation of poverty should be the priority of all the development programs.

Mallick is in the school of thought that believes that the government should focus on the rural population. She says this because the magnitude of rural poverty is larger than urban poverty. Since poverty measures have also responded more to rural economic growth. She suggests macroeconomic policies that would influence those variables. She uses agriculture as an example of a sector that includes many of the rural population. More government spending in agriculture will lead to higher production and thus reduce poverty.

In developing regions around the world, hundreds of millions of people live in rural areas on less than $2 per day. This level of poverty forces communities to make hard choices between food, health care, and education. It is the poverty level where an estimated 11 million children die every year. Many of these communities are not fits for traditional microfinance, which tends to be primarily urban, and significant portions of their land are not suitable for agriculture.

Participation process to create fairness development program is a key for sustainability development. The development especially in village level or rural area should not make the people as the object of development. Although majority people who live in the village or rural are poor, youth and women, they are rarely involved in decision making process. They could not deliver their ideas or opinions because they could not have resources and opportunities (Oakley 1991). Marginal group on development process in the rural community may reluctant to participate because the participation method usually tends to become a one way communication therefore marginal group in community should be able to identify their strength (Minkler 1997) to be able to contribute in development process. Rural area in Indonesia especially marginal group has high illiterate or they had primary education only (Dhanani and Islam 2002). However, the data and information about the potential asset in the rural is commonly presented by statistical which rarely encourage people to learn about the meaning of information. A proper participation method is needed to strengthen the capability of the marginal group and community in rural area. Nowadays, Geographical Information System (GIS) is popular tool to use in participation process by using visual data and information which may be easier to interpret by the rural community.

Extreme poverty remains one big challenge in the developing and under developed countries all over the world, (Olinto & Uematsu, 2000). This situation has affected development in most of these developing countries, and core institutions in the society such as health and education have been adversely affected, (Auya & Oino, 2013). According to WCED, (1987), poverty is not only an evil in itself, but that sustainable development needs to meet some basic needs so as to fulfill the aspirations for a better life. According to the same report, working with poor community members to eradicate poverty should continue to be the core of any sustainable local development.

However, even with introduction of peasant masses, the rural areas of Zambia continue to be poverty-stricken, and food production on a larger scale faces severe constraints, which includes lack of production assets and inputs, limited irrigation infrastructure and missing governmental extension