It's very critical for us to understand the situation that African is really in when it comes to the economic and social well being of the African people.
If I narrow it to Uganda, the level of poverty and the level of people's access to basic needs is really bad and so it's very critical for us to discuss about poverty and how to deal with poverty in Uganda and Africa as a continent.
The critical solution to provide a vaccine for poverty is through investments.
What is poverty?
Poverty is categorized in various ways, though the most commonly known definition of poverty is spending less than a dollar a day, but that's not really what poverty means.
Poverty is the lack of ability to afford needs when you need them. When you can't pay for your needs when you need them it means that you are either very poor or your treaking towards poverty.
The best explanation in ecomomical terms is the "working poor".
Poverty seen from the angle of the "working poor" means that you're living from "hand to mouth" that is to say what you make is what takes care of your bills and then you have nothing left over to care of you and then the struggle continues each month. This is the true definition of poverty.
Poverty can be categorized into 2 which are;
• Extreme poverty where you can't afford anything at all.
•Working poor. Those who have to work so that they can eat. Which is the true definition of poverty.
So as Africa most especially Uganda, we must find a solution to avoid being the working poor who have to depend on the end of the month to pay our bills and sustain our lives like basically what comes into our hands is what goes into our month and there's nothing left over.
To address poverty, we need to look at the economic factors of production which are Land, Labour, Capital and Entrepreneur. In Africa most especially in Uganda we see that what most people bring into the picture is labour which many people employ as a way to get out of poverty and be able to provide for their families.
When you depend 100% on labour you are bound to remain in what we called "The working poor".
No matter how wonderful your job is, you can not rely 100% on labour because you can fall sick tomorrow, you can get fired from the job, there could be something that could go wrong in that Industry etc. No matter how secure you think you are in your job, depending 100% on labour as a factor of production and a way for you to make money for you and your family is not a smart idea.
Capital investment! The vaccine to poverty in Uganda.
Most people in Europe and America depend on capital investment and not labour. They depend on making investments that can give them returns on their investments.
So the beauty about investment is that it works for you even when your sleeping, sick, in holiday or when that job shuts down. Capital investment is not constrained by time, neither your personal energy nor what's going on in your job, capital investment keeps working for you even when incapacitated to do any job.
80% of the worlds millionaires and Billionaires make most of their money from Investments. For example, Warren Buffet who is one of the worlds richest men has never worked anywhere neither has he produced anything nor been an entrepreneur, all he dose is to make investments.
Making investments is the surest way of getting out of poverty.
Did you know that Investment is Bibilical?
John 3
[16]“For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.
We see that God himself invested. Because of his love for us he decided to give his only begotten son that we may have life in abundance.
Ecclesiastes 11:1-2
1 Ship your grain across the sea; after many days you may receive a return. 2 Invest in seven ventures, yes, in eight; you do not know what disaster may come upon the land.
God tells us to Invest and secure for ourselves. This implies that even God forwards the investment language.
Borrowing from the example of the plants we look at a tree. We see seed being planted in the ground, the seed grows and germinates and later becomes a tree bearing lots of fruit and this too is called investment. Our whole lives are an investment, our children are investments to this world but why can't we think in that direction too?
So you can not rule investment out of your lives and somehow think you are going to get a Bounty harvest of returns. The only way Ugandans can sustain their lives financially is to make sure that they are actively involved in investment, actively investing somewhere. Let your capital be working for you, let your money be working for you.
