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Facts About Poverty
WASHINGTON, D.C. (June 27, 2005) - Today, our world houses 6.39 billion
people. An estimated five billion people live in the developing world where:
- Some 1.2 billion people - more than one in five on Earth - currently
live below the international poverty line, earning less than $1 per day.
- 815 million people are undernourished - they consume less than the
minimum amount of calories essential for sound health and growth.
- 11 million children younger than age five die every year, more than
half of them from hunger-related causes.
- 113 million children are without access to basic education – 60
percent of them are girls.
- More than 38 million people (including nearly three million
children) are living with HIV/AIDS - 92.8 percent of all HIV infections
worldwide.
- Every day in Africa, 6,300 people die and another 8,500 contract the
HIV virus - 1,400 of whom are newborn babies infected during childbirth
or by their mothers' milk.
- More than 12 million children in Africa have lost at least one
parent to HIV/AIDS; this total will reach 18 million by 2010.
In the past 30 years, significant progress has been made in the fight
against global poverty, as reflected in the following statistics
provided by the United Nations Development Program:
- During the last 15 years, deaths of children five years of age and
under have declined by 28 percent.
- Between 1991 and 2001, the number of people living in extreme
poverty decreased by 130 million.
- An additional 8 percent of the population had access to clean
drinking water and an additional 15 percent had access to sanitation
services in 2001 than did in 1991.
- Illiteracy was cut nearly in half to 25 percent worldwide since the
1960's.
"We have the opportunity in the coming decade to cut world poverty by
half," states the United Nations Millennium Project Report to the
Secretary General. "Billions more people could enjoy the fruits of the
global economy," the report continues. "Tens of millions of lives can be
saved. The practical solutions exist. The political framework is
established. And for the first time, the cost is utterly affordable . .
. all that is needed is action."
Copyright © 2008 The Evangelical Covenant Church. |
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