The Human Development Reports (HDR) of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) provides deeper insights into the makeup of the poverty of multiple dimensions. To many people, poverty is mostly associated with food and clothes, and to some extent, it is narrowly related to living conditions.
What the HDR highlight as common deprivations include a lack of adequate housing, sanitation, electricity, cooking fuel, nutrition and school attendance. And while these are witnessed globally as major contributor in the makeup of the multidimensions of poverty, it is certain and well worth to note that waste and lack of its proper management, also partakes largely in the social deprivation.
In poor communities where there is restricted access to clean drinking water, inadequate road infrastructure, and a lack of dignified sanitation are a persisting challenge, there is generally poor management of waste.
Poverty tends to adopt an image of waste dumps along major roadsides, and in river streams. It is common to sometime associate these characteristics with rural area, yet surprisingly enough, major cities globally are seeing a rise in these conditions, in both the developing and the developed countries alike.
In order to address this scourge of pervasive social discomfort, close links now more than ever, needs to be established by various social actors, including businesses, civil society structures, government departments across all levels, and individuals at large.
Once stakeholders gather for a common call, and programmes including awareness campaigns are designed, implemented and sustained beyond once-off cleanups, then one dimension of poverty would be tackled and hope restored to many people who are living under the most unfavorable social conditions.
Similarly, there would be improved health conditions as a consequence.
