Poverty: we can't afford to ignore it any longer

Poverty is not necessarily the lack of money in the pocket.
It is not primarily a money problem. The lack of money ; more precisely, the inability to make ends meet is just symptomatic of a much broader systemic malaise. It is the severest breach of a person's humanity of tentacular dimensions!
It is less about what people don't have and more about why they don't have what they don't have. That is why simply throwing money at the problem does not defeat it. It makes it even worse because it nourishes it.
A very complex state of affairs broadly characterised by hopelessness, indignity and despair, poverty flourishes and thrives by the the very circumstances it creates in the lives of its victims.
Poverty is a state of existence or a way of living that perpetuates a circle of lack or insufficiency.
To successfully combat poverty therefore our attention must be propelled towards creating a parallel but opposite perpetual circle in the areas where it thrives-- a perpetual circle of sufficiency and productivity! This brings up the issue of sutainability in all societal endeavours.
Quality education, policies that support entreprenuership as well as the involvement of Governments in establishing centres of excellence are perhaps some of the most potent weapons needed to be unleashed against this formidable enemy.