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Overall Poverty

Overall poverty includes the conditions, situations, and contexts in which individuals and families lack the economic and social means necessary to participate effectively in personal and community life. Poverty is unevenly distributed across societies, populations, and groups, placing certain groups at a disadvantage in leading quality lives. Overall poverty encompasses connected dimensions that go beyond income. These dimensions include food security, access to safe water, education, health, and the environment.

Definition

Several definitions of overall poverty are available, but the definition in the Copenhagen Declaration of the World Summit for Social Development, initiated in 1995, is frequently cited and widely used. The Copenhagen definition refers to income, but also factors such as hunger, social discrimination and exclusion, and disenfranchisement from political decisions. This poverty concept includes a ...

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