Where do we go from here?
Counteracting these constructions of poverty that blind us to its reality, requires major changes in status quo. First, better data collection methods and ways to analyze the statistics must be found in order to finally understand the size as well as root of the problem of poverty. As much as statistics are often a theoretical plaything of academics, if data is collected objectively and conscientiously, statistics could be a valuable tool to help explain where poverty comes from. For one, knowing the number of people poverty affects and its real causes would help with designing more meaningful responses to end it. 

Second, and more importantly, the common outlook on poverty and perception of the poor must change. If people’s mentality evolves so that poverty is no longer seen as a necessary evil (the someone-will-always-be-on-the-bottom syndrome) or as a form of natural selection of the fittest, effective pressure can be placed on those in power to change the institutionalized approaches to and views on poverty. This second change is directly linked to the problem of data because there is a reciprocal relationship between what information is made available and those who consume information. As much as people are influenced by what they read, they can also impact on the quality of information produced. If people become more aware about the ineffectiveness of current anti-poverty actions and of modern ways of evaluating poverty, they will become resensitized to poverty as a severe social problem. Only then, can people exert pressure and bring about change.

The fact is that poverty is a violent, systemic disease that nearly half the world’s people suffer from. Like with the practice of slavery, we are desensitized to the reality of poverty. Like it was with genocide, we have not been able to conceptualize an effective and regular response to the problem. The current obsession with talking, researching, and understanding poverty, while important on some level, points to the inability to grasp the real meaning and acute presence of people living in conditions of poverty. The focus on discussion about how much, where and who is poor is, simply put, a crime when it takes place in spite of the rampant poverty that we can actually see: on European and North American streets, in the TV, in books, and in the rare but nevertheless present words of those directly affected. The challenge, however frustrating, is that it depends on our generations to change whether people in 100 years will look back with scorn, at how unresponsive we were to the presence of poverty.

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