What are the world’s problems and what are the possible solutions?

What are the world’s problems?

The lack of equality in terms of pay, education, health, and politics between men and women is still a major problem in the world. Good news: in 2017, France was, among the G20 countries, the country that made the most progress in terms of reaching parity between men and women.

Social disparity: access to housing, education and cultural facilities, and political representation vary depending on your age, gender, social category, income or diploma.

Children’s lack of education in poor countries: approximately 60 million children in the world do not have access to education, although school is compulsory in the majority of countries. It’s in Sub-Saharan Africa that more than half of the uneducated children live. In poor countries, the parents need their children as farmhands.

Wars over religion, resources, power, or territory: the wars in Syria and Yemen, etc. make the world an unstable place.

Dictatorships: Bashar al-Assad continues to lead a dictatorship in Syria sowing terror and violence in his country.

Child exploitation: there are about 152 million children aged 5 to 14 in the world, of which 60 million live in Africa; about 70 million children are in forced labor. There are also at least 40 million adults employed as slaves.

Many people suffer from discrimination. Judging another person or community based on demeaning stereotypes leads to misery and social tension, even war.

The mistreatment of animals: every day, a large number of cats, dogs and other animals suffer and die from neglect by humans.

What are the possible solutions to the world’s problems?

We can contribute time, energy, ideas, money to the numerous associations and charities fight for worthy causes: children’s education, animal rights, an end to child exploitation and slavery, anti-discrimination measures, etc.

We should encourage people to help each other and to accept differences.

The best means to prevent wars is educating people to be more peaceful.

Women need to continue their struggle for greater equality with men. Children from the youngest age need to learn that both women and men have the right to realize their dreams; it is not because you are a boy that you cannot become a hairdresser or nanny, and it is not because you are a woman that you cannot become a builder or even run a country.

Article by Camille, Elise & Noëllia, ISP Courpière (France)


Héléna adds:

This is a very interesting question because it makes us think about society today and makes us want to change it, to make it evolve in the right direction for a better world.

There are a lot of problems in the world and I won’t be able to mention them all. But I will try to say as much as I can and find solutions to these problems.

First of all, there is great inequality in the world regarding distribution of wealth. According to a study by UNICEF, the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, the richest 20% have 69.5% of world income and the poorest 1.4 billion people have only 2% of world GDP. To try to make this distribution of wealth more equal, it would be plausible to give money to countries in need of development to boost their economic growth. Unfortunately, this would take a long time and cost a lot of money, but it would certainly give very good results.

Now let’s talk about gender inequality. A large majority of women are overwhelmed by violence, wage disparities and cultural persistence. Women are on the front lines of domestic and sexual violence. In 2015, six times more women were murdered by their spouses than husbands by their wives. 62,000 women were raped against 2,700 men in the same year. Women’s wage income was on average 24% lower than men’s in 2014, according to the French National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE). Only 72% of mothers have a job, compared with 85% of fathers, and one-third (33%) work part-time, compared with only 4% of fathers on average. To achieve greater gender equality, children should be better educated about equality.

Environmental degradation is the deterioration of the environment through depletion of resources such as air, water and soil; the destruction of ecosystems; habitat destruction; the extinction of wildlife; and pollution. It is defined as any change or disturbance to the environment perceived to be deleterious or undesirable. Environmental impact or degradation is caused by the combination of an already very large and increasing human population, continually increasing economic growth or per capita affluence, and the application of resource-depleting and polluting technology. To reduce these problems, humans must try to reduce their consumption. By doing this, there will be less pollution and waste.

War is one of those phenomena that have accompanied humanity since its origins. War made and defeated empires, enriched and ruined kingdoms, inspired the structuring and destruction of legal, moral, religious norms, and contributed to the development of arts and techniques, sometimes for better but too often for worse. To prevent wars, everyone must learn where the boundaries between good and evil are. To me, the line is crossed when you make a person suffer physically or psychologically.