Poverty is general scarcity or dearth, or the state of one who lacks a certain amount of material possessions or money.It is a multifaceted concept, which includes social, economic, and political elements. Poverty seems to be chronic or temporary, and most of the time it is closely related to inequality. As a dynamic concept, poverty is changing and adapting according to consumption patterns, social dynamics and technological change. Absolute poverty or destitution refers to the deprivation of basic human needs, which commonly includes food, water, sanitation, clothing, shelter and health care. Relative poverty is defined contextually as economic inequality in the location or society in which people live.
After the industrial revolution, mass production in factories made production goods increasingly less expensive and more accessible. Of more importance is the modernization of agriculture, such as fertilizers, to provide enough yield to feed the population.
Responding to basic needs can be restricted by constraints on government's ability to deliver services, such as corruption, tax avoidance, debt and loan conditionalities and by the brain drain of health care and educational professionals. Strategies of increasing income to make basic needs more affordable typically include welfare, economic freedoms and providing financial services.
Poverty reduction is a major goal and issue for many international organizations such as the United Nations and the World Bank. The World Bank estimated 1.29 billion people were living in absolute poverty in 2008. Of these, about 400 million people in absolute poverty lived in India and 173 million people in China. In terms of percentage of regional population sub-Saharan Africa at 47% had the highest incidence rate of absolute poverty in 2008. Between 1990 and 2010, about 663 million people moved above the absolute poverty level. Nevertheless, given the current economic model, built on GDP, it would take 100 years to bring the world's poorest up to the standard poverty line of $1.25 a day. It has been argued by some academics that the neoliberal policies promoted by global financial institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank are actually exacerbating both inequality and poverty