2. Hi. We are from 63rd Boys’ Brigade Company. Our motive today is to talk
about this topic that is widespread around the world. It is also oblivious to
many of us living in comfort. Our 3-man team is made up of
•SGT Terence Ho Yan King
•SGT Nicholas Lim Ji Cong
•CPL Lim Jia Kai
In the following slides we will tell you about what is poverty and how
poverty is assessed. How it impacted the countries and about its history.

3. Poverty
Poverty, a word we all will think about immediately when less developed
countries, or perhaps we call it : Third World Countries are said to us.
These less developed countries such as Bangladesh, Ethiopia.
These countries have very low gross domestic product (GDP).
For example Ethiopia has a GDP per capita of $700. This means that on
average, a working person earns $700 a year. This is much lesser than
what we have in Singapore. In Singapore we have a GDP per capita of
$100 000.
In the following slides, I will talk more about what contributes to poverty
in many countries.
Even though a country may be developed, parts of the country may still
be less developed and is suffering from poverty.
Many reasons can contribute to the poverty of less developed and this
can be assessed with a tool called human development index (HDI)

4. Causes of poverty takes into regard
•Economic well-being
a) GDP per capita
b) Employment opportunities
c) Employment structure
•Health of the people
a) Life expectancy
b) Infant Mortality Rate
c) Access to health facilities and clean water
•Education
a) Literacy rate

5. GDP per capita
GDP per capita as I have mentioned, is the total amount of money a
country earns divided by how many people are working. Which indicates
that the locals have higher purchasing power. They are able to afford
more basic necessities and luxury items, thus increasing their standard
of living(SOL). High GDP means that government has high revenue to
finance local development projects such as improving on the existing
infrastructure or building new ones such as roads, schools, houses.
Countries with low GDP per capita would cause their government not
able to finance local development projects, which would in turn result
them in plunging into poverty.

6. Employment Structure
Most of the working population in developed countries work in the
tertiary or quaternary sector and the goods produced are more
value –added than goods produced by the primary sector. This
results in them having a higher revenue which generates a higher
tax revenue for the government which they can finance local
development such as investing in industrial projects and thus
raising the country’s level of development.
If a high % of the working population in a country are employed in
the primary sector, the amount of revenue would be lower thus
resulting in lower tax revenue and that the government cannot
finance local development, resulting for that country to be less
developed and if nothing is done soon, the country would plunge
into poverty as well.

7. Employment Opportunities
Employment opportunities are important as well.
When there are high employment opportunities, more people will be
employed. This in turns increases the GDP per capita. With higher GDP
per capita, people in the country would be able to afford more goods and
services. The demands for these goods and services will then increase.
This improves the SOL and Quality Of Life(QOL). Businesses start to earn
more money from these huge demands and they start to expand to meet
the demands. More jobs are therefore created which will result in higher
employment opportunities.
If there are low employment opportunities, less people will be employed,
decreasing their GDP per capita and decreasing the SOL and QOL of the
people. Resulting in slow progress of the country’s development.

8. Life Expectancy
Life expectancy refers to the amount of years a person born in a
country is expected to live. The higher the life expectancy of a
country, the more the country will earn more money as when the
country has a larger population will have more people in the work
force, resulting in a even higher GDP per capita
More goods and services will be produced and this generates
higher tax revenue for the government to finance local
development projects.

9. Mortality Rate
Mortality rate refers to the rate at which the number of babies less than
one year of age dies, for every 1000 live births in a year.
Which a low infant mortality rate, more babies will survive and be able to
grow up healthily and will help in the long term of increasing the workforce
in the future. If there were to be a high mortality rate in a country, the
country would have a lack of manpower in the workforce in the future,
which results in the country earning less revenue the government would
not have enough revenue to finance local development projects to
increase the country’s level of development.

10. Access to health facilities
and clean water
With access to health facilities and clean water, the locals would be
able to much more healthier and would not fall sick very easily which in
turn saves money. The locals have access to adequate amount of food
as well. With these health facilities, a healthier workforce would lead to
high work productivity as less people fall sick. More people can go out
to work, earn an income and have high GDP per capita. More goods
and services will be produced and this generates higher revenue for
the country. The Government will have more revenue to finance local
development projects to advance their countries to be more developed.

11. Literacy Rate
Literacy rate refers to the percentage of adults above 15 years old in a
country would can read and write.
Less developed countries have a lower literacy rate as most of them work as
farmers or fisherman. Most families prefer to let them children to work with
them rather than sending them to school. They are also poor and cannot
afford to send their children to school. Many of them are also lowly educated
and thus do not see the importance of education.
If a country has a high level of literacy, the labour force is highly skilled and
educated which increases productivity. The workers can also be trained to
acquire necessary skills needed in the economic sector. When they can read
and write, they will be more proficient in using advanced technology like
computers and increase the efficiency of their work. With this they will have a
higher position in their company and receive better pay and can afford a
higher SOL. Being able to read and write also gives them a wider job
employment range as they are able to work in the secondary, tertiary and
quaternary sector which produces highly value-added products bringing in
more profit and revenue

12.  Because of poverty, many people in the country do not get to live a normal
and comfortable life. The local’s standard of living will decrease and their
quality of life will decrease as well. This will result in a bad economy and the
country will not be able to prosper like other countries.
 Through this activity, we will spread the message about poverty to others so
that they can realise that not all of the world is living the way we are in
singapore. Adults can donate and help out in other countries, volunteer with
a large group of people to help build a proper water system.
 Teenagers like us can influence people positively and can help spread the
word of poverty in other countries. They can also donate money to Red
Cross or charitable organisations.
 Even kids will be also able to help through donating their pocket money to
help the needy.

13.  In the past, unfairness and Discrimination was common, some people may not want to hire
a worker just because of his/her race, This is commonly known as what we call, Racism.
Thus, the worker may suffer due to being paid less, despite having to do the same amount
of work, or even worst, more work.
 Sterotyping is also a factor that may lead to poverty. People do have mindsets that old
people are useless and are unable to contribute much to their work or society. Thus, most
companies may not want to even hire old people despite the fact that old people would
have more experience as compared to the younger workers. Thus, the old people may be
unable to support themselves.
 A selfish leader may have their own ambition and could even sacrifice the people just
because of his dream. Also, a leader may have too much pride and should there be a war,
he would not do what is best for the country, but what he thinks is right. Thus, his wrong
judgement can cause the country to suffer as a whole. Even if his country is losing the war,
he may just destroy his own resources, so that his enemy will not to claim them. However,
he may not calculate the fact that in this way, not only he is losing the war, but moving
forward to land the whole country in debt.
 War also damages the economy and infrastructure of the country, as war needs a lot of
money to buy ammunition and firearms to defend their country. Their country also will then
have a lack of manpower to start their own businesses to earn revenue. Money will also be
needed to reconstruct their whole country. After the war , the country will be very prone to
drug smuggling as their country is totally in ruins and their defence is lowered. More and
more people can illegally migrate to their country and the internal security of their country
will be put at risk.

14.  I think that the factors above are very important for a government to think about.
These factors will then help prevent poverty as these factors are all interlinked. If
there is one missing factor they do not care about, their country would most likely
plunge into poverty. With higher GDP, more tax revenue would be generated.
These factors are factors that have to be taken into consideration carefully as
they can raise the level of development in a country or bring them to poverty. For
example, in Philippines, a mountain called: Smokey Mountain is just unsuitable
for living. The name comes from amount of smoke that is produced and the
amount of rubbish there. The life expectancy rate there like around 40 with no
access to health care and clean water. Most of them are also illiterate and they
all work in the primary sector producing lower GDP per capita decreasing their
SOL and QOL. Therefore, I think that we Singaporeans are very lucky to be
living in a very developed country and that we have a high SOL, QOL and GDP
per capita. We should treasure what we have and cherish it, not whine so much
if we have little problems.
 We should also put ourselves in others shoes and not waste the resources we
have such as clean water, the ability to study and more. We are given the
chance to carry out these but we choose not to. They do not even have the
chance!

15. Done by: Terence Ho Yan King
Nicholas Lim
Lim Jia Kai
Copyrights: Google
Wikipedia
http://www.hottnez.com/the-10-poorest-countries-of-the-world/
Our background knowledge
http://www.shillington.ca/poverty/Poverty_a_short_history.pdf