Get premium membership and access revision papers with marking schemes, video lessons and live classes.

Processing. Please wait.

Traditional African understanding of poverty

Answer Text:
Traditional African understanding of poverty
Poverty in traditional African society is understood as lack of basic needs required to live a decent life, lack of food, shelter, clothing and other resources.
-It also means lack of a family.
-Some causes of poverty in traditional African society are:
Lack of inheritance:
-People who are born and brought up in poor families usually inherit very little property or nothing.
Laziness:
-Laziness is considered as a contributing factor to poverty.
-Lazy people are despised and songs of ridicule are composed to castigate them.
Raids:
-Families that are victims of raiding are rendered poor overnight.
-Raiders usually take off with livestock, girls and women.
Natural calamities:
-Poverty may also be as a result of natural calamities such as drought, floods, earthquakes and invasions of army worms and locusts.
Sickness:
-Prolonged illness is another contributing factor to poverty.
-Diseases such as epilepsy, leprosy, paralysis and mental
illness render the victims unproductive.