Combating poverty is essential

The World Bank recently issued a report on the poverty situation in Jordan, saying that besides the “normal” 14.4 per cent of people who are considered poor in the country, an additional 18.6 per cent of the population joins this group in a “transient” way. 

This added group, the bank says, normally drifts from the lower segment of the middle class and enters the poverty pocket on and off, depending on temporary factors that last three months on average.

This finding does not come as a big surprise; it has long been said by many economists that the middle class’ standard of living is constantly eroding due to the prevailing difficult economic situation in the country.

Whether seasonal or otherwise, the total figure — 33 per cent — of poverty stricken people should give reason for worry.

With no prospect of improvement of their life conditions, these people will inevitably pose a problem to the national interests, including the country’s security.

As often said in this space, the connection between poverty and crime, in whatever form, has been documented and clearly established by a series of UN reports.

The country must endeavour therefore to reduce the number of poverty-stricken people. To start with, the “transient” lower-middle class bracket should be propped up to prevent it from going to the “other side” and tip the balance dangerously in the direction of poverty.

And while the concerned ministries should do more in that direction — by encouraging job-creating industries and by retraining people to gain required skills, to start with — the international community also has the duty to extend more economic aid to Jordan to help it combat poverty, all the more so in view of the large number of refugees the country accommodates, at great cost.

With more than one-million-and-a-half Syrians now living in Jordan, many of them a cheaper alternative in the labour market, poverty can only increase among the population.

Nations are greatly interconnected and poverty anywhere in the world is an enemy to the entire international community.

It follows, then, that reducing poverty anywhere in the world will help combat the rise of terrorism and radicalism, a threat, again, to the entire humanity.

The international community could send aid that can play a big part in helping reducing poverty, doing itself a favour in the process.