Poverty Is A Wicked Problem

How the issues associated with poverty might make it a ‘wicked problem’

Poverty is a complex multi-dimensional problem (Saleem, 2012), and the issues associated with it make it a wicked problem. According to Horst, (Rittel, 1973) a wicked problem is a social or cultural problem that is difficult to solve for several reasons, including incomplete or contradictory knowledge, the number of people and opinions involved, the large economic burden, and the interconnected nature of these problems with other problems. Poverty is defined as the state of being inferior in quality or insufficient in amount (P.B., 2001). Poverty is driven by many factors, particularly, lack of education, global decisions and policies and tax avoidance and havens. Poverty cannot easily be solved, confirming it to be a wicked problem.

A key driver of poverty is lack of education. At present, nearly a billion people who entered the 21st century were unable to read a book or sign their names. This contributes at present and in the future to an increase in unemployment, due to lack of skill and ability, promoting poverty. This is associated with
Despite globalization’s promise to interconnect the world; global decisions, policies and practices can be detrimental. This is primarily because these decisions are driven by the western world, including leaders of wealthier countries or global actors. The leaders of government make impending decisions based on their opinions, including spending majority of countries wealth on weaponry for war. Statistics show that less than one per cent of what the world spent every year on weapons was needed to put every child into school by the year 2000 and yet it didn’t happen (State of the World Report, Feb 1997). Global decisions and policies as a driver of poverty, faces incomplete and contradictory knowledge with a number of people and opinions involved, confirming it to be a wicked