Poverty is one of the common problems in third world countries. Poverty means missing much in life. Its eradication is the common economic goal of all countries in the world but to attain the same remained far slow. The failure to reach the common economic goal is in one way or another has been attributed by the following factors:(1) Rising 3rd world debts. Less developed or developing countries are the so called third world countries. These are nations that emerged from their colonial periods, however, there are still many third world countries which under the economic control or influence of their former colonial administration. High foreign debts are symptoms of a defective and unjust international economic order. It only shows that poor countries are getting poorer. The interest payments alone constitute a huge sum of money that the poor countries can hardly afford to pay. (2) Internal Conflict. Conflicting views of our lawmakers respecting budget spending related legislations would also affect the attainment of the economic goals. With the refusal, it backs down some bills. And the continued debate on the other will bar the passage of the more relevant measures and might lead to unexpected situations. (3) Declining of developmental aid. Developed countries extend foreign aids to the less developed countries not only for economic needs of the latter but also for the strategic interests of the former. Every donor country has its own motives. These motives may be: economic- (donor country seeks foreign market and supplies); political- (donor country has various special interest in the well being of the recipient, special interest may be in the form of military, ideological, historical, cultural or other considerations); or humanitarian (donor country aims to alleviate poverty and diseases or assists development and social justice projects). To attain economic and political interests is of lesser weight for the rich countries in increasing their foreign aid. It greatly depends on their determination to comply with their social responsibility. The weakening of the economic and humanitarian motives of some donor countries triggers much of the declining development aid. (4) Negative effects of globalization. In 1947, Philippines had signed a Parity Agreement with the U.S. and the said agreement provides “free and equal trade relations”. This signifies that globalization is not to us new but this era is different. Globalization is the inevitable process of integration of the world economy under monopoly capitalism-the internationalization of free barriers - less movement of capital, goods and services in a liberalized or free and open market arrangement. It opens great opportunities for millions of people around the world. Increased trade foreign investments expanding media and Internet connections are fuelling economic growth and human advancement. Global markets, global technology, global ideas, and global solidarity can enrich the lives of people everywhere. It greatly expands people’s choice.It offers enormous potential to eradicate poverty. (5) Social impact of structural adjustment policies imposed by the World Bank (WB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF). World Bank (WB) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) are the two (2) multi-lateral financial institutions. WB focused on the developmental aspect of project lending to reconstruct the devastated economies while IMF was visualized as facilitator in promoting international trade relations among countries experiencing balance of trade deficits (shortage of foreign currencies to finance their imports). The Structural Adjustments Program (SAP), which was launched, by WB and IMF in 1979 carries the policies of - liberalization, deregulation and privatization. This tri-policy is a pre-conditioned before 3rd world countries could reconstruct outstanding loans and these had an impact to our social and economic conditions. So, to avail debt-relief package the highly indebted poor countries had to implement the so-called SAP. Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) contained conditions for Structural Adjustment Loan (SAL) like: finance market liberalization which includes currency devaluation; removing government’s direct role or intervention in the economy; reduction of government spending for social services (like on health, education, social welfare) to insure foreign debt servicing.
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