IRAQ
Introduction
The poverty and inequality issues have been hammering the entire Iraqi society for many years while the oil-rich country generates several billions in money annually from its oil trading globally. The current data depicts that 22.5% of Iraq’s 40 million citizens live under the poverty line on a national level, which is around 22.5%. Poverty turns into a burden on those groups who are most prone to suffering: women, children, the displaced, and the rural population. This article is concerned with considering the extra poverty situation in Iraq and its top causes and effects. It offers recommendations for lifting people out of poverty with an approach to private-sector businesses (Ali, 2022).
Current Poverty Situation
The existing studies and statistics indicate that more than one-fourth of Iraqis live below the poverty line. As per the most recent nationwide household survey, which ended in 2012, the national poverty rate is way down south to 22.5%. Rural areas are home to the highest share of poor people, who make up 31.2% of the total population of rural areas. Compared to the same period, cities, ties, and towns constitute 14.7% of their population. Undernutrition and food insecurity are also alarmingly high, the most affected being 10% of Iraqi children under the age of 5, primarily those from poor households (Bérenger, 2023).
Besides monetary poverty, most Iraqis are unreachable to essential state services and access to health care, education, abundant electricity, and clean water, resulting in fewer rights and needs. Such development goals, however, continue to be unmet even as national income levels have been rising gradually over the same period, and the high oil prices triggered this upsurge. For instance, over 90% of Iraq’s population, about 39 million, depends mainly on the unstable national grid for electricity that can only provide between 50% and 60% of the actual demand. It produces these blackouts many hours a day (Amjad, Cabrera, and Phadera, 2023).
Causes of Poverty & Inequality
Most experts agree that the conflict is still the main reason for poverty in Iraq, which started in the 1980s. War after war and ethnic rivalry have affected traumatically millions of lives, livelihoods, and growth paths that keep many millions of people in poverty. For example, the Group of Islamic State Militants ISIS that emerged between 2014 and 2017 brought about massive IDPs as houses and businesses were destroyed during the fighting. More than 6 million Iraqi nationals were internally displaced in 2016. Many struggle with housing and returning to everyday life (Alebadi and AlSaadi, 2021).
One of the critical structural problems that has emerged is high mono-dependence on the oil sector for economic development. This has, in turn, hampered poverty reduction and aggravated inequality. Oil revenue strains on 90% of the government budget and creates up to 60% of the country’s GDP. While the capital turnover is costly, with a small number of Iraqis employed, the service sectors positively impact job creation. This means that the output in agriculture and retail trade is noted to remain low.
The corruption and brittleness of the state machines are two reasons for the worsened human development problems in Iraq. The abundance of such oil resources brings no joy to the people of both past and current Iraqi governments, who have never seen the need to produce and invest in the healthcare, education, infrastructure, and social protection programs that expand the country’s opportunities. Corruption is precisely systematic, with $450 billion going into government coffers since 2003. The money for the national projects that must be developed is regularly filed into the pockets of the officials in charge of these projects due to corruption, bribes, and inflated stripping deals.
Consequences of Poverty
Economic woes as a result of Iraq’s poverty are devastating from the socioeconomic point of view, ranging from malnutrition and hunger to human rights abuse. More than a million Iraqi kids are not attending school, with the prime sources being allegedly linked to child marriage and child labor in families of ghettos. No learning chances act as an impediment to human capital development. In addition, the root causes of persistent poverty get deeper and extend across multiple generations.
The inequalities in access to public services and the high level of confidence of the general populace leading to the Government’s failure to deliver what is due to the citizens (i.e., services from the revenues of the resources) have also contributed to the public frustration and political tension taking place in Iraq, which is not a promising position to be in.
There are repeated observations on shortcomings in public service delivery, i.e., electricity and Jobs, mainly in southern Iraq, especially in provinces like Basra, Dhi Qar, Maysan, and Missan. The protestors from petroleum-rich areas, which are sources of funds transferred to state coffers, are highly concerned that the very little wealth has not provided the basic requirements to achieve a decent living standard (Bottcher, 2021).
Multiple impoverished communities also sow distrust, crime, and violence, which, in essence, disorganize social activities and discourage external investments that could generate jobs—more than 36. % of the youth are unemployed in Iraq, mainly due to the skills mismatch between the market skills and the weak education system. Unemployed youth represent the favorite prey for terrorism recruiters to militant and insurgent forces who respond to the economy’s temptations rather than to pure terrorist ideology. Long-run expenditures in human development should be such that there is longevity of peace and equity in Iraq.
Recommendations for Poverty Alleviation
Economic Diversification & Private Sector Development
Iraq should implement well-designed policies to diversify the economy by focusing on the growth of trading non-oil sectors such as manufacturing and agriculture. Seen from this angle, coordinated measures taken to improve the business climate can catalyze increased investments in areas such as food processing, construction, textile, and information technology. Priority reforms shall bring in policies to cut down red tape, make commercial resolution better and more just, make the contemporary trade process frictionless, and phase out subsidies to create a level playing for all. A dynamic economy can ensure the broadening of employment and creating productive activities that inflow incomes for all ordinary persons in Iraq (Bottcher, 2021).
Infrastructure & Public Service Delivery
The substantial funding needed to get the physical, social, and public infrastructure aligned with health, education, electrification, water, and sanitation will help boost human capital development and people’s welfare. This covers such civil work as constructing new schools, outfitting hospitals, retaining or upgrading power plants, and aiming for stable power systems. Partnerships can combine public and private resources to help accelerate development and maintenance cycles and achieve effectiveness and efficiency. Supplying sound community services in the various susceptible populations and rural locales empowers houses to divert their incomes to priority areas such as business expansion (Fadel and Al-Mahdawi, 2023).
Inclusive Growth Policies
Better opportunities will be offered through the general expansion of the economy and with wide-ranging inclusive growth policies that help reduce the inequalities in all marginalized groups. The targeting of subsidized resources, including conditional cash transfer and subsidized insurance, can enable payment of income for people with particular needs, like war widows, orphans, people with disabilities, and older people. The promotion of educational enrollment and workplaces for women, rural people, and ethnos/religious minors by affirmative action policies is another crucial step in the right direction. Ameliorating inequality offers more outlooks that unite the people and help build greater harmony (Jawad, 2024).
Iraq’s most significant obstacle is the high prices to be paid in terms of the social and economic costs in the short term. However, the human and natural resource assets that Iraq possesses can be the real stars of the show in the medium- and long-term transformation. Well-coordinated initiatives in the form of enabling policies, good governance, infrastructure network development, and human capital investments can shape the future of Iraq on an inclusive growth that takes no one along. Having visionary and wise leaders who will secure long-term peace and shared prosperity through judicious utilization of oil revenues can ensure Iraq’s future (Al-shukri, 2020).
ALGERIA
Introduction
Poverty and inequality, although positive progress has seen these problems solved, two decades and the Government’s available wealth pose significant challenges to Algeria’s developmental goals. Analogous data show that about 14% of Algerians are still in national poverty, DZD 800 per month. Nonetheless, this data cannot hide the fact that there is an uneven distribution of nations and people at risk in a variety of groups. In the course of this paper, the reader will go through a deep analysis of Algeria’s poverty problem and the essential issues connected to it; as such, this paper will take into account the factors that cause poverty, the situation that ensues because of it as well as provide sustainable solutions. The significant issues analyzed encompass the ailing financial public spending based on the nontransparent subsidy programs which mobilize billions of dollars annually; the unemployment among the youth, which currently stands at 29% and is a result of the undiversified, state-owned economy; and the problem of irregular, poorly- constructed and inefficient provision of services like electricity and sanitation which lead to waste of money, especially for people experiencing poverty (Hacene, 2021).
The crucial elements of the proposed interventions are diversifying the economy of the country beyond the energy subsector by being less dependent on hydrocarbons, creating an efficient and transparent social protection foundation through introducing digital cash transfer directly aiming the vulnerable ones, giving young people training and equipping them with the workforce skills they need, and finally mobilizing government budget through creative financing methods for investing in infrastructure and public services. By doing this kind of reform well and emphasizing the development of human capital and an entrepreneurship economy, Algeria can achieve the goal of bringing everyone in – no one is left behind (Yahiaoui and Khineche, 2020).
Current Poverty Situation
The latest official estimates from 2011 show that over 14% of the Algerian population lives below the national poverty line. The poverty rates differed significantly from region to region, where they were as high as 20% in desolate areas and less than 5% in the larger cities. The highest poverty areas are located in the countryside. It is here where almost 18% of the total population resides at the poverty level. Poor literacy skills, outdated infrastructures, and weak economic bases fuel the gap between urban and rural areas in this respect (Souhil, 2021).
In addition to income poverty, other issues include healthcare, education, housing, and basic amenities. These bare essentials are inadequate for Algerians living in the peripherals and slum urban areas. As an example, 2.6 million Algerians do not have clean drinking water, and 7 million get no sanitation services, causing epidemics. Disruptions of valuable services, including health, education, housing, and others, deny citizens the chance of socioeconomic betterment and improvement of living standards (Souhil, 2021).
Causes of Poverty & Inequality
Researchers provide reasons for Algerian poverty as the confirmed or imagined economic deficiencies of the country’s policies or their social policy failures. The high dependence on the hydrocarbon sector, which accounts for 90+ of the export revenue and 60% of the budgeting process, carries the economy at significant risk of responding adversely when we face external shocks that directly affect household incomes as well as the spending power of the Government. To cite, the boom in oil prices occurred in 2014; even worse was the erosion of Algeria’s foreign reserves by over 50%, and cuts in subsidies and social programs that impact people experiencing poverty were forced (Touitou, Yacine, and Ahmed, 2020).
Furthermore, public money that is not legitimately spent has stimulated inequality and, consequently, the eradication of poverty initiatives. This government spending is more than half the budget towards the wide range of subsidizing products for food and energy, which benefit the rich more than the poor due to the significant consumption levels compared to the poor by consuming products like gasoline, cooking oil, and wheat gifted. Here, institutionalizing more economically oriented allocation of subsidies allows social impediment programs, which may yield more competitiveness and fairness (Merouani, 2021).
Consequences of Poverty
The poverty strips millions of Algerians of the right to get by the bare needs and make the most of their abilities. Academic results are highly affected, particularly in poor household settings where child labor and dropout rates are high due to cases of child poverty. Today, 8% of school-aged children who are 6-14 years old are not in school. In the south, rates are much higher, especially in the poorer provinces. Being uncared for in the first stage of their lives locks them forever into a life of poverty.
In addition, the progress of Algeria’s gender equality objectives also faces a setback with the presence of poverty. This poverty mainly affects women and girls. In the male-dominated education field, teachers are expected to be more involved than female teachers in middle-income countries. Algeria’s gender inequality index ranks 129th out of 189 countries in the UNDP gender inequality index, which shows that several challenges continue to pose a problem for women’s empowerment and inclusive national development (Merouani, 2021).
Recommendations for Poverty Alleviation
Economic Diversification
Algeria needs to move fast towards a modernized, knowledge-based, and mixed economy to create quality jobs for the youth and deal with more than a million absorbed into the labor force every year. Streamlining bureaucratic and hostile processes can facilitate private capital into fast-growing sectors like information and communications, tourism, renewable energy, logistics, and manufacturing. They are establishing special business zones that provide facilities and easy procedures, such as targeting incentives for domestic and foreign companies to benefit from Algeria’s favorable geography and population structure (Boukhelfa, 2022).
Enhancing Employability
Investment at the primary level in youth and underprivileged groups in terms of technical and soft skills is crucial to boost the number of productive employments in the sectors that have the potential to contribute a larger share in economic growth. The propinquity between the Government, educational institutions, and foremost employers can replace courses in correspondence with current skill gaps. Extending the scope of practical training and internship programs, similar to the success model, ANSEJ, should continuously provide young people with experience and seed capital to establish businesses.
Infrastructure & Public Services
Building a critical regional infrastructure that would support and foster sustainable economic/social developments could go a long way toward an all-inclusive elimination of poverty in the country. Dotting the transport and broadband networks can assist in integrating holdback peripheries that are disconnected from domestic markets. On the other hand, more substantial exposure to migrants is desirable for improving the level of services deficient power, water, sanitation, and irrigation, which offer the ultimate result of such development being a high living standard, nutrition, and health due to low level of water disease. Cooperation with China and Arab states on loan terms and know-how could contribute to Algeria’s capital shortage in the infrastructure area (Nesrine, 2022).
INDONESIA
Introduction:
During the last two decades, Indonesia achieved significant economic gains by lifting more than 50 million poor citizens out of poverty. While inequality persists as almost 9 percent of the people, or almost 25 million population, still languish beneath the national poverty line. This masks more extreme deprivation and persistently low indicators (Endrawati, 2022).
Research also reveals that still more than 65 million Indonesians are actually exposed to the chances of falling into poverty, and it is twice as in the rural areas than in cities, 13 percent and 6 percent, respectively. Inequalities associated with income have not only been associated with access to amenities but also extended to accessibility to basic amenities and necessities. Oh, for instance, the situation of the national power grid is that just over half of the villages are not yet connected, while in urban areas, the situation is quite different; the grid network covers almost every community. Also, the Maternal Mortality Ratio may be indeed the most significant evidence of healthcare quality difference in the cases where a woman’s life is lost more than five times, even in below-average districts (Nugroho et al., 2021).
Current Situation:
Official estimates of Indonesia’s monetary poverty in 2019 were 9.22%; while this represents progress, it conceals widespread, severe hardship among the country’s over 270 million inhabitants. National averages hide regional, gender, and income disparities. Poverty is disproportionately concentrated in rural areas, where it is around 13% compared to just 6% in metropolitan areas. However, living costs are rising in areas like Bandung, Surabaya, and Greater Jakarta, exacerbating economic precariousness. Approximately half of all urban workers work in low-paying, non-union jobs, including small-scale trade, transportation, domestic work, and construction. They are nevertheless vulnerable to poverty during periods of unstable finances or a drop in production (Hasan, 2021).
Additional analysis reveals that over 65 million Indonesians live on less than $2 daily, just above the poverty threshold. They risk returning to poverty due to internal or external financial hardships. More than 25% of children under five who are chronically malnourished or stunted, particularly in poorer areas, show persistent deprivation, highlighting the ongoing worry over food insecurity (Laurens and Putra, 2020).
Causes & Drivers:
Policies that maintain regional imbalances, inadequacies in infrastructure, a dearth of social safety, and a failure to diversify rural economic alternatives are the leading causes of poverty. Although the wealthy island of Java generates 58% of the country’s GDP, 68% of its people live in poverty due to its enormous population of rural laborers and subsistence farmers who cannot prosper in the face of rising inequality and market concentration. The budgetary allotments continue to be disproportionate. For example, the 2020–2024 National Mid-Term Development Plan allocates $450 billion for infrastructure, of which 17 percent is intended for less developed areas (Choiriyah et al., 2020).
Consequences & Implications:
Severe poverty fuels social unrest and political unrest as dissatisfaction grows over the disparities in development that separate affluent tourist areas and destitute communities located just kilometers apart throughout the vast archipelago. Denied respectable employment opportunities, more than 5 million undereducated youngsters face dismal futures, increasing the likelihood that extremist organizations would take advantage of these weaknesses to propagate radical ideas, particularly in eastern Indonesia. Women are disproportionately affected by poverty, and as a result, they lack political and financial agency. The national rate of maternal death is 324 per 100,000 births. However, in districts that are below average, it is a startling 1,000, indicating that discrepancies in healthcare access are what lead to differences in human capital (Rahayu and Wahyuni, 2020).
Recommendations:
Social Protection Reforms
Because of increased consumption, reducing regressive energy subsidies helps wealthier families more than the poor. Savings should be used to pay for the extension of subsidized national health insurance that shields disadvantaged populations, such as PKH, from sudden increases in income. Another benefit of automating eligibility with unified digital IDs is reducing duplicate claims while improving beneficiary targeting. Expanding social security benefits to employees in unincorporated industries such as small firms, ride-hailing services, and micro-enterprises can further enhance financial stability (Rahayu and Wahyuni, 2020).
Inclusive Growth Policies
Contract farming programs that export higher-value cash crops, special economic zones, agribusiness partnerships, and rural tourism development may help smallholder farmers advance up the agricultural value chain and generate jobs. The availability of public housing funding also helps families with lower incomes break free from urban poverty traps. Targeted microcredit drives the expansion of small businesses, while vocational training facilities offer trained labor for local infrastructure projects.
To attain fair prosperity, Indonesia must address demographic and geographic disparities via asymmetry. By integrating public services and 21st-century networks into underserved regions, a sophisticated, middle-class society may be supported by more considerable advantages that can be distributed. Indonesia can greatly reduce inequality and eradicate severe income poverty with the right measures (Handoyo, Hidayatina and Purwanto, 2021).
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