Poverty is a problem of many people who cannot meet their basic needs like food, water, and home. Each time you see images on TV and on the internet with hungry people with no food, running water, and often tattered clothing and no shoes, living in mud houses in slum area, you begin to imagine what poverty looks like.

    Poverty usually has so many causes. The first one is income inequality. The second one is conflicts. The people who suffer from war are very likely to live in poverty, because wars cause the loss of human lives, diseases, hunger, and destruction of infrastructure. The third factor is being far away from important facilities such as roads, markets, health services, schools, and economic facilities. The fourth One is education. If people have never been or less educated, they cannot help themselves to access information and find jobs which lead to unemployment.

    People living in poverty have difficulty in getting clean water, food, and shelter. This can lead to hunger, malnutrition, as well as diseases. All of this may rise death and crime rates as well.

    This problem is really difficult. However, it does not mean that it cannot be reduced. Some ways can be applied to handle this problem. For example, help the poor to get education or vocational training to help them gain knowledge and skills. Therefore, people can work or start off a business.

Adopted from: http://www.eschooltoday.com/poverty-in-the-world/what-is-poverty-for-children html.

Read the text again. Choose the correct answers based on the text in Activity 9.

". . . it cannot be reduced.'' (Paragraph 4)

The word 'it' refers to ....