Practice IB Global Politics Topic Poverty with authentic exam-style questions for both SL and HL students. This question bank focuses on the exact syllabus content for Poverty and mirrors Paper 1, 2, 3 style where relevant.
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Stimulus
Adapted from Owing the Future: Sovereign Debt and the Poverty Trap by Samuel Nkomo (2021), published in the Review of Global Finance and Justice.
Poor countries facing crushing repayments are offered two very different remedies. 'Aid' provides new money, grants or concessional loans, to fund schools, clinics and infrastructure. Yet fresh loans can add to the very debt burden that starves public budgets, and aid can arrive tied to the donor's goods, priorities or political conditions.
' Debt relief' takes the opposite path: it cancels or restructures existing obligations so that money once sent abroad to creditors can be redirected to domestic development. Supporters argue relief frees fiscal space and treats poverty as a structural problem of past borrowing, while critics warn it may reward reckless lending and deter future finance if it is granted without reform.
Using at least two examples from the stimulus, distinguish between 'aid' and 'debt relief' as responses to poverty in indebted states.
With explicit reference to a global political challenge from one of your researched case studies, explain how debt relief has been used to address poverty in a developing country.
Based on your answer to part (b), recommend a condition or safeguard that would ensure debt relief translates into poverty reduction.
Evaluate the extent to which global economic structures, rather than domestic governance, are responsible for persistent poverty in developing states. Base your response on one researched case study and integrate links to at least two HL extension topic areas.
Stimulus
Data (adapted from official reports): Australia's 'Closing the Gap' framework tracks disadvantage among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, who make up about 3.8 percent of the population in one of the world's wealthiest countries. Reported gaps include a life-expectancy difference of roughly 8 years compared with non-Indigenous Australians, markedly higher rates of child poverty, and adult imprisonment rates many times higher. In October 2023 a national referendum to create an Indigenous 'Voice' to advise Parliament was rejected by about 60 percent of voters.
Using the stimulus, identify three things the data suggest about disadvantage among Indigenous Australians.
Analyse one political issue raised by persistent poverty among an Indigenous minority in a wealthy state.
Recommend a course of action that a wealthy state could take to reduce entrenched poverty among an Indigenous minority, and consider its limitations.
Evaluate the extent to which persistent poverty among Indigenous peoples in wealthy states is caused by political exclusion rather than a lack of resources.
Stimulus
Text extract (adapted): "Across the central Sahel, in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, some of the world's poorest people live alongside some of its fastest-growing armed insurgencies. Jihadist groups recruit where the state is absent, offering pay, protection and a sense of purpose to young men with no other prospects. Governments and their foreign partners poured money into soldiers, bases and drones; between 2020 and 2023 the region also saw a wave of military coups. Yet violence spread and poverty deepened. Aid workers argue that you cannot shoot your way out of hunger: without schools, jobs and functioning services, every fighter killed is soon replaced by another the poverty produced."
Using the stimulus, identify three things it suggests about poverty and conflict in the Sahel.
Analyse one political issue raised by the link between poverty and armed conflict.
Recommend a course of action that national and international actors could take to break a cycle of poverty and conflict in a fragile region, and consider its limitations.
Evaluate the extent to which breaking the cycle of poverty and conflict requires prioritising development over military security.
Stimulus
Adapted from Small Loans, Large Claims: The Microfinance Debate by Kwame Mensah (2020), published in the Journal of Inclusive Finance.
Advocates of microfinance make two claims that are often confused. The narrower goal is 'financial inclusion': bringing poor people, especially women, into the formal financial system so they can save, borrow and insure through regulated institutions rather than moneylenders. On this measure microfinance has plainly succeeded, reaching hundreds of millions of clients.
The bolder goal is 'poverty eradication': the promise that access to small loans will lift borrowers permanently out of poverty by funding micro-enterprises. Here the evidence is far weaker. Many loans fund consumption rather than business, some borrowers fall into cycles of debt, and structural barriers, thin markets, poor infrastructure, low demand, limit how far a loan alone can transform a life.
Using at least two examples from the stimulus, distinguish between 'financial inclusion' and 'poverty eradication' as goals of microfinance.
With explicit reference to a global political challenge from one of your researched case studies, explain how a microfinance institution has attempted to reduce poverty.
Based on your answer to part (b), recommend a change that would reduce the risk of over-indebtedness among borrowers.
Evaluate the extent to which market-based solutions such as microfinance are more effective than state provision in reducing poverty. Base your response on one researched case study and integrate links to at least two HL extension topic areas.
Stimulus
Adapted from Counting the Poor: What the Numbers Hide by Ingrid Sorensen (2023), published in Measurement and Development Review.
How a society measures poverty shapes how it responds. An 'income poverty' line counts anyone below a fixed monetary threshold, such as the international extreme poverty line, as poor. It is simple, comparable across countries and easy to track, but it reduces a whole life to a single figure of daily spending.
A 'multidimensional poverty' measure instead counts overlapping deprivations in health, education and living standards, such as child mortality, missing years of schooling, or lack of clean water and electricity. On this view a household above the income line can still be acutely poor, and two households with the same income can face very different deprivations. The choice of measure quietly decides who is helped and who is left uncounted.
Using at least two examples from the stimulus, contrast 'income poverty' with 'multidimensional poverty'.
With explicit reference to a global political challenge from one of your researched case studies, explain how the way poverty is measured has shaped a government's or organisation's policy response.
Based on your answer to part (b), recommend a way to improve how poverty is measured or targeted so that vulnerable groups are not overlooked.
Evaluate the extent to which the way poverty is defined and measured determines whether it is effectively reduced. Base your response on one researched case study and integrate links to at least two HL extension topic areas.