Existing scarcity

So what surmountable scarcity exists today?

All the usual suspects, and a lot applies as much to Western countries as it does to the developing world. There still exists unnecessary scarcity of:

• Clean energy
• Clean water
• Nutritious food
• Medicine and medical facilities
• Decent housing in slum areas
• Sustainable development 
• High quality, interesting education
• Safe and efficient transportation that doesn't kill passengers or contribute to changing our climate
• The facilities for people and communities to do more things for themselves - we are too reliant on machines and products from big business
• Resources to get things done that need to be done - at a community level — sounds woolly perhaps but covers uncountable worthy projects that simply don't get done through lack of funds or bureaucratic hurdles
• Quality - quality products and architecture as examples.
• Time - people's time. Time to follow things important to the individual. Time for other people.

Slums built on swamp land near a garbage dump in Jakarta

Starving child

Collecting water in Mwamanongu Village, Tanzania

Causes

• Lack of appropriate technology
• Locked-up resources
• Short-term thinking
• Inadequate co-operation (lack of communication and sharing of knowledge)
• Self-interest (at many levels)
• Cultural inertia (that's the way it has always been done)
• Lack of trust
• Ignorance (lack of education or understanding)
• Incompetent government administration
• Bureaucracy
• War
• and in no small part, monetary economics

See also

• Scarcity  (Wikipedia entry)
• Post-scarcity
• Mankind's fundamental resources