Responsible for Poverty

Governments have to maintain the support of their people whether the government is a democracy or a dictatorship because the leader will cease to be the leader if the people as a whole are unhappy. This means that a government must keep the majority of its population content in order to remain in power. People tend to be unhappy when their basic needs are not met; they can be unhappy even after they have their basic needs but they are definitely unhappy if their basic needs are not met. Most people view these basic needs such as food, clean water, shelter, health, and safety as fundamental rights and in fact Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights affirms these as human rights as well. Therefore the interest of the people clearly lies in obtaining these rights for themselves and there is a strong international consensus that governments have the duty to assist in alleviating poverty.
These standards are, obviously, not always met since there are many people in this world without the basic necessities of life. There is no enforcement mechanism other than the will of the people to make sure that governments implement measures to alleviate poverty, and the will of the people is only successful if enough people are willing to jeopardize the continued existence of the government’s power. This is easier in a democracy but it still requires a substantial quantity of people to take a substantial risk which is why this does not happen very often and governments can often dodge the duty of providing for their citizens’ basic needs. Furthermore the United Nations does not have the power to force nations to attempt to reduce poverty, it can only suggest that the y should do so which it does in the Universal Declaration for Human Rights. There are repercussions if a nation does not provide programs to try to eliminate poverty such as a disgruntled segment of the population that is less likely to cooperate. These repercussions are often not a significant enough disincentive for a government to take action but the disincentives exists which further shows that the government has a responsibility in this field.
This argument becomes more difficult if you do not define poverty on an absolute level but on a relative level because if everyone is poor relative to someone else the government has an obligation to provide finances to all members of society and I do not think this is true. In a way this relative definition can be partially true while still applying this philosophy. One can be poorer than their counterparts but there is also a bottom line when it comes to poverty and the bottom line is what governments should be concerned about since that type of poverty poses the greatest risk to the livelihood of the citizenry.