10 Theses on Helping the Poor

Posted on June 10, 2025 by Paul Schlehlein

–– Paul Schlehlein

The audio version of this article is available here: YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

Calls for helping the world’s poor are ubiquitous. These cries arise from church pulpits, university professors, school textbooks, media channels, and especially government officials. Indeed, poverty exists all around the world.

For example, Africa is by far the poorest continent globally. In 2023, twenty-three of the world’s twenty-five poorest countries were in Africa. In 2025, the country with the highest per capita GDP was Luxembourg at $141,080. The nation with the lowest per capita GDP was Burundi at $157, nearly 900 times less than Luxembourg.

According to Visual Capitalist, South Africa has the greatest wealth inequality in the world. This means that, more than any other country, princes and paupers live side-by-side—or, more realistically—within distant sight of each other. But this is misleading, since the “poor” in South Africa are far wealthier than the middle class of, say, Malawi, where the per capita annual earningis $448 compared to $6,517 in South Africa.

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The Two Worlds in Africa

Posted on January 7, 2025 by Paul Schlehlein

–– Seth Meyers

The audio version of this article is available here: YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

Of the 80 members in the South African Tsonga churches, 15 members have full time jobs. Several of those 15 are informal jobs such as cleaning houses or selling snacks to school children, meaning that the pay is less than R2,000 ($110) per month or R66 ($3.70) per day. One man told me that he is 100% satisfied with the job he has had for a year because it pays R4,500 ($250) per month. Other members work from time to time doing hair, building, or cleaning when part time work presents itself.

But that should be compared with a friend in Johannesburg South Africa who told me that it would be hard for a family to live with less than R30,000 ($1,666) per month. How could it be hard to live with 10 times more than other Christians are making?

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Africa’s Absent Fathers: Working Away from Home and Family

Posted on July 18, 2024 by Paul Schlehlein

–– Warrick Jubber

Audio version of this article is available here: YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

Among Africa’s many problems, one of its greatest is the absence of fathers from the home. The Human Sciences Research Council reports that in South Africa, over 60% of children do not reside with their biological fathers, with only 20% seeing their biological father bi-weekly.

The importance of a father’s role in the family and especially the development of children has been the subject of extensive global research. The National Fatherhood Initiative reported that children living in father-absent homes are almost four times more likely to be poor and twice as likely to drop out of school. Children raised without the influence of a father are also reported to face significantly higher probabilities of being abused or indulging in crime, drug and alcohol abuse, and sexual promiscuity.

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The Greatest Defense Against Poverty

Posted on November 21, 2023 by Paul Schlehlein

–– Paul Schlehlein

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Is there a correlation between broken homes and poverty? Do the two go hand in hand? Can the strengthening of the home decrease poverty in a society? The answer to all of these questions is yes.

In 2014, the Institute for Family Studies ranked countries by how likely children are to live with two parents, from 94 percent of children in Jordan to just 36 percent in South Africa. None of the top 20 countries with the highest percentages of two parent homes are found in the top 50 of nations with the highest percentage of their population below the poverty line. In other words, it is nealry impossible to find poor countries with a high percentage of two-parent homes.

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TARIF: Why It’s Always Good to Resist Bribes

Posted on September 1, 2023 by Paul Schlehlein

The Africa Review in Five highlights African current affairs from a Christian perspective. Listen and subscribe through Youtube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.Today is Friday, September 1^st, A.D. 2023. This is The Africa Review in Five, written by Paul Schlehlein and presented by Yamikani Katunga.

Why It’s Always Good to Resist Bribes

Late last year, Malawi’s President Lazarus Chakwera vowed to crack down on the corruption and bribery so common in his nation. Chakwera took office in 2020 after becoming the first African opposition leader to defeat an incumbent in a return of a fraudulent election.

Bribery is not uncommon in Africa, just as in many other places around the world. Billboards dot the landscape with statements like: “Give corruption a good knock. Don’t give or take bribes.” Such signboards wouldn’t be necessary if bribery weren’t an issue. Transparency International’s Global Corruption Barometer—Africa 2019 has found that more than half of the 47,000 citizens in the 35 countries surveyed believe their nation is becoming more corrupt. And this bribery is hurting the poor.

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TARIF: Discerning Climate Exaggerations

Posted on August 15, 2023 by Paul Schlehlein

The Africa Review in Five highlights African current affairs from a Christian perspective. Listen and subscribe through Youtube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

Today is Tuesday, August 15^th, A.D. 2023. This is The Africa Review in Five, written by Mark Christopher and presented by Yamikani Katunga.

The daily headlines regarding climate change are relentless. The calls for the African continent to do its fair share and get its fair share are endless.

For Africa to do its fair share the heralds of climate change propaganda make pointed proclamations. They say the limited resources that Africa has should be devoted to developing technologies and finding solutions for the patterns we observe in the climate. They presumptuously attribute many of the deaths from natural disasters and much of the poverty to climate change and prophesy that it will only get worse. This fear-mongering is meant to divert the people of Africa away from rational thinking and scientific reasoning. Only such effective means as fear can cause a people to hastily abandon the more abundant and affordable resource of fossil fuels; which at present remains the best chance Africa has for raising her people out of poverty and developing societies that are less susceptible to the effects of natural disasters.

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TARIF: Good News for Nigeria’s Economy

Posted on August 11, 2023 by Paul Schlehlein

The Africa Review in Five highlights African current affairs from a Christian perspective. Listen and subscribe through Youtube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

Today is Friday, August 11^th, A.D. 2023. This is The Africa Review in Five, written by Paul Schlehlein and presented by Yamikani Katunga.

Good News for Nigeria’s Economy

Late last month Visual Capitalist published an article entitled: “The Top Economies in the World (1980-2017)”. The author, Marcus Lu, not only recorded the top worldwide economies over the past 40+ years, but also predicted which nations would be in the top 15 economies over the next 50+ years.

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