Political+Impact+-+Poverty+-+FA11

The Democratic Republic of the Congo
The overwhelming amount of poverty in the Congo has affected the political aspects of the country. This happens because the people that are living terribly in the country all blame the government because it’s their job to make sure that the citizens have a good life, and when the government can’t do anything to help the people they get angry and rebellious. Unfortunately, the Congo’s population of people living below the poverty line is more than the amount of people above it, so this means that poverty-stricken people are the majority and that gives them some power. They will sometimes use the amount of people they have to their advantage to create some very large disturbances within the government. One main example of this was when Laurent Kabila was assassinated. The inadequate economy of Congo (which he did help creating) caused an uneasiness among the citizens. They blamed Kabila for the position they were in, and hence the reason why he was assassinated. There has been a lot of corruption within the Congolese government over time and that has contributed a lot to the poverty that is now going on. Mobutu was actually stealing money from the government for a long time and that contributed a lot to where the poverty level is nowadays. Ironically, this poverty has now contributed towards a lot of the problems that the Congo is dealing with now. Mobutu would’ve been out of office a lot sooner than he was except for the fact that he was the only person that could be elected. This means that he could never lose. Mobutu was in office as President for 32 years. This doesn’t allow there to be a lot of perspectives offering their insight into the problems that the Congo had. There have only been four presidents since the Congo gained independence, and this isn’t a completely varied group of people so the country isn’t getting the amount of diverse leading that it should get. Luckily, the new President, Joseph Kabila, is doing a very adequate job. One thing that he has completed is a deal with the United States that is called the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF), and this was completed and made official on December 11, 2009. This is a step in the right direction to eventually rid poverty from the Congo after many years of suffering in a excruciating amount of poverty.


 * Somalian Political Issues: **

It seems the Somali people as a community have not come together in a central way to support a central government. They value their independence a lot. The questions we are asking and the type of aid we are giving presume that Somalia wants to move towards our notion of government, with decisions being made from the top down. What the majority of people live on and produce every day, is about as primary as it was about a thousand years ago.So while almost every other country in the world keeps creating new jobs, Somalis have been left behind. Relative to all of their neighbors, they keep getting poorer. Soon after the central government collapsed, it is very hard to develop an economy and create jobs and wealth when there is constant fighting. Parts of Somalia are controlled either by warlords, a weak provisional government, or Ethiopian troops that re-invaded to get rid of the Islamic courts. An example for the negative effects of was is ”The War in Somalia.” The War in Somalia was an armed conflict involving largely Ethiopian and Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG) forces and Somali troops from Puntland versus the Somali Islamist umbrella group the Islamic Court Union (ICU), and other affiliated militias for control of the country. The war officially began shortly before July 20, 2006 when U.S. backed Ethiopian troops invaded Somalia to prop up the TFG in Baidoa.The TFG in Somalia invited Ethiopians to intervene, which became an "unpopular decision" that failed to strengthen the government.Subsequently the leader of the ICU,Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, declared "Somalia is in astate of war, and all Somalis should take part in this struggle against Ethiopia". On December 24, Ethiopia stated it would actively combat the ICU. If the fighting would just end once and for all, Somalia could have a chance rebuild there movement and help many people who have been living in poverty.