World Poverty Facts

Poverty
“Half of the world population starves.. other half diets” when I saw this on a notice board in my University, I didn’t think its an over exaggerated sentence. I think it tells the whole story in few words. But to know how wide the disparity is between the rich and poor and the effect of concentration of wealth and power in few hands we need to carefully look beyond the surface and be willing to learn the world we are living in. Here are some facts from my research about world poverty.

About 25,000 people die every day of hunger or hunger-related causes, according to the United Nations.
Around 27-28 percent of all children in developing countries are estimated to be underweight or stunted.
Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names.
1.4 billion people live below poverty line that means they earn less than $1.25 per day.
About 0.13% of the world’s population controlled 25% of the world’s assets in 2004.
The wealthiest 20% of the world’s population consumes 76.6% of the world’s goods while 80% of humanity gets the remainder.
For every $1 in aid a developing country receives, over $25 is spent on debt repayment.
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.Source .
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.
For the price of one missile, a school full of hungry children could eat lunch every day for 5 years.
The assets of the world’s three richest men are more than the combined GNP of all the least developed countries on the planet. .
One out of every eight children under the age of twelve in the U.S. goes to bed hungry every night.

U.N. chief Ask Rich nations to help Africa

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged the world’s rich nations to spend $72 billion a year to help Africa to fight poverty, improve health and ensure universal primary education. He pointed out the estimated $267 billion spent last year on agricultural subsidies by the world’s richest nations. In 2006, 34 of the 50 nations on the UN list of least developed countries are in Africa.

Google Hosts Africa Conference

“Building the conversation between Silicon Valley and Africa.”, is the mission statement of BarCamp Africa. The organizers expects grass roots changes can be made by building awareness using this event. Google has offered to host this gathering on their beautiful Mountain View campus. What is a BarCamp? It is a gathering to share and learn in an open environment with discussions, demos and interaction among participants. BarCampAfrica 2008 will be held on Oct 11th.

Rwanda Distributes XO laptops

Rwanda launched the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) program with the distribution of 5,000 laptops. The laptops are currently being sold for US$188, but OLPC is working to drive down costs through a give-one, get-one-free program. Nearly 100 teachers have already completed training by the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology in the use of specialized OLPC XO-1 computers. The organization has also provided Ethiopia with 5,000 laptops, and South Africa and Ghana have each received at least 100 laptops. Rwanda is one of the poorest countries in the world with a GDP of $238.30.

36 million Americans live in poverty

There are 36 million Americans live in poverty - earning less than $20,650 for a family of four. More than 12 million American children grow up in impoverished homes. Compared to 20 other wealthy nation on measures of health, safety and relative poverty, America’s children fare amongst the worst.