Poverty: A few facts

• Half the world — nearly three billion people — live on less than two dollars a day.
• The GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of the poorest 48 nations (i.e. a quarter of the world’s countries) is less than the wealth of the world’s three richest people combined.
• Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names.
  
• Less than one per cent of what the world spent every year on weapons was needed to put every child into school by the year 2000 and yet it didn't happen.
• 51 percent of the world’s 100 hundred wealthiest bodies are corporations.
• The wealthiest nation on Earth has the widest gap between rich and poor of any industrialized nation.
• The poorer the country, the more likely it is that debt repayments are being extracted directly from people who neither contracted the loans nor received any of the money.
• 20% of the population in the developed nations, consume 86% of the world’s goods.
• The top fifth of the world’s people in the richest countries enjoy 82% of the expanding export trade and 68% of foreign direct investment — the bottom fifth, barely more than 1%.
• In 1960, the 20% of the world’s people in the richest countries had 30 times the income of the poorest 20% — in 1997, 74 times as much.
• An analysis of long-term trends shows the distance between the richest and poorest countries was about:
  • 3 to 1 in 1820
  • 11 to 1 in 1913
  • 35 to 1 in 1950
  • 44 to 1 in 1973
  • 72 to 1 in 1992
• “The lives of 1.7 million children will be needlessly lost this year [2000] because world governments have failed to reduce poverty levels”
• The developing world now spends $13 on debt repayment for every $1 it receives in grants.
• A few hundred millionaires now own as much wealth as the world’s poorest 2.5 billion people.
• “The 48 poorest countries account for less than 0.4 per cent of global exports.”
• “The combined wealth of the world’s 200 richest people hit $1 trillion in 1999; the combined incomes of the 582 million people living in the 43 least developed countries is $146 billion.”
• “Of all human rights failures today, those in economic and social areas affect by far the larger number and are the most widespread across the world’s nations and large numbers of people.”
• “Approximately 790 million people in the developing world are still chronically undernourished, almost two-thirds of whom reside in Asia and the Pacific.”

• According to UNICEF, 30,000 children die each day due to poverty. And they “die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death.”

  That is about 210,000 children each week, or just under 11 million children under five years of age, each year.

• For economic growth and almost all of the other indicators, the last 20 years [of the current form of globalization, from 1980 - 2000] have shown a very clear decline in progress as compared with the previous two decades [1960 - 1980]. For each indicator, countries were divided into five roughly equal groups, according to what level the countries had achieved by the start of the period (1960 or 1980). Among the findings:
  • Growth: The fall in economic growth rates was most pronounced and across the board for all groups or countries.
  • Life Expectancy: Progress in life expectancy was also reduced for 4 out of the 5 groups of countries, with the exception of the highest group (life expectancy 69-76 years).
  • Infant and Child Mortality: Progress in reducing infant mortality was also considerably slower during the period of globalization (1980-1998) than over the previous two decades.
  • Education and literacy: Progress in education also slowed during the period of globalization.

  
  

• Water problems affect half of humanity:
  • Some 1.1 billion people in developing countries have inadequate access to water, and 2.6 billion lack basic sanitation.
  • Almost two in three people lacking access to clean water survive on less than $2 a day, with one in three living on less than $1 a day.
  • More than 660 million people without sanitation live on less than $2 a day, and more than 385 million on less than $1 a day.
  • Access to piped water into the household averages about 85% for the wealthiest 20% of the population, compared with 25% for the poorest 20%.
  • 1.8 billion people who have access to a water source within 1 kilometre, but not in their house or yard, consume around 20 litres per day. In the United Kingdom the average person uses more than 50 litres of water a day flushing toilets (where average daily water usage is about 150 liters a day. The highest average water use in the world is in the US, at 600 liters day.)
  • Some 1.8 million child deaths each year as a result of diarrhoea
  • The loss of 443 million school days each year from water-related illness.
  • Close to half of all people in developing countries suffering at any given time from a health problem caused by water and sanitation deficits.
  • Millions of women spending several hours a day collecting water.
  • To these human costs can be added the massive economic waste associated with the water and sanitation deficit.… The costs associated with health spending, productivity losses and labour diversions … are greatest in some of the poorest countries. Sub-Saharan Africa loses about 5% of GDP, or some $28.4 billion annually, a figure that exceeds total aid flows and debt relief to the region in 2003.
  
  
• The richest 50 million people in Europe and North America have the same income as 2.7 billion poor people. “The slice of the cake taken by 1% is the same size as that handed to the poorest 57%.”
• The world’s 497 billionaires in 2001 registered a combined wealth of $1.54 trillion, well over the combined gross national products of all the nations of sub-Saharan Africa ($929.3 billion) or those of the oil-rich regions of the Middle East and North Africa ($1.34 trillion). It is also greater than the combined incomes of the poorest half of humanity.
• A mere 12 percent of the world’s population uses 85 percent of its water, and these 12 percent do not live in the Third World.
  

• Consider the global priorities in spending in 1998

  Global Priority	$U.S. Billions
  Cosmetics in the United States	8
  Ice cream in Europe	11
  Perfumes in Europe and the United States	12
  Pet foods in Europe and the United States	17
  Business entertainment in Japan	35
  Cigarettes in Europe	50
  Alcoholic drinks in Europe	105
  Narcotics drugs in the world	400
  Military spending in the world	780

  And compare that to what was estimated as additional costs to achieve universal access to basic social services in all developing countries:

  Global Priority	$U.S. Billions
  Basic education for all	6
  Water and sanitation for all	9
  Reproductive health for all women	12
  Basic health and nutrition	13

  
  

• Number of children in the world: 2.2 billion

  Number in poverty: 1 billion (every second child)

  
  

  Shelter, safe water and health

  For the 1.9 billion children from the developing world, there are:

  • 640 million without adequate shelter (1 in 3)
  • 400 million with no access to safe water (1 in 5)
  • 270 million with no access to health services (1 in 7)

  
  

  Children out of education worldwide: 121 million

  
  

  Survival for children

  Worldwide,

  • 10.6 million died in 2003 before they reached the age of 5 (same as children population in France, Germany, Greece and Italy)
  • 1.4 million die each year from lack of access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation

  
  

  Health of children

  Worldwide,

  • 2.2 million children die each year because they are not immunized
  • 15 million children orphaned due to HIV/AIDS (similar to the total children population in Germany or United Kingdom)

  
  

• The total wealth of the top 8.3 million people around the world “rose 8.2 percent to $30.8 trillion in 2004, giving them control of nearly a quarter of the world’s financial assets.”

  In other words, about 0.13% of the world’s population controlled 25% of the world’s assets in 2004.

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I think we all need to think! It's a greedy and unfair world we live in.