IB Global Politics Poverty Questionbank

(d) Evaluate the extent to which international goals such as SDG 1 can meaningfully reduce global poverty.

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.

(a) Using at least two examples from the stimulus, distinguish between 'aid' and 'debt relief' as responses to poverty in indebted states.

(b) 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.

(c) Based on your answer to part (b), recommend a condition or safeguard that would ensure debt relief translates into poverty reduction.

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.

(a) Using the stimulus, identify three things the data suggest about disadvantage among Indigenous Australians.

(b) Analyse one political issue raised by persistent poverty among an Indigenous minority in a wealthy state.

(c) Recommend a course of action that a wealthy state could take to reduce entrenched poverty among an Indigenous minority, and consider its limitations.

(d) 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."

(a) Using the stimulus, identify three things it suggests about poverty and conflict in the Sahel.

(b) Analyse one political issue raised by the link between poverty and armed conflict.

(c) 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.

(d) Evaluate the extent to which breaking the cycle of poverty and conflict requires prioritising development over military security.

Stimulus

Adapted from Lines in the Sand: How the World Counts Its Poor by Priya Ramesh (2023), published in the Journal of Global Development Metrics.

How poverty is defined decides who a state is obliged to help. An 'absolute poverty' standard fixes a single subsistence threshold, the money needed for a bare minimum of food, shelter and basic goods, and counts anyone below it as poor. The measure is stable over time and comparable across countries, which is why the international extreme poverty line is set this way.

A 'relative poverty' standard instead measures deprivation against the normal living standards of a person's own society, for example a household earning below a set share of the national median income. On this view a family can afford food and yet still be poor if it is excluded from what its neighbours take for granted. As societies grow richer the relative line rises, so relative poverty can persist even where absolute poverty has almost disappeared.

(a) Using at least two examples from the stimulus, distinguish between 'absolute poverty' and 'relative poverty'.

(b) With explicit reference to a global political challenge from one of your researched case studies, explain how the way an absolute poverty line is set has shaped the measurement and targeting of poverty.

(c) Based on your answer to part (b), recommend a course of action that would make a poverty line better capture those who are missed by a single monetary threshold.

(d) 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.

(d) Evaluate the extent to which measuring poverty against an absolute line, rather than a relative one, leads to more effective anti-poverty policy. Base your response on one researched case study and integrate links to at least two HL extension topic areas.