Hunger & Poverty Facts
God is moving in our time to liberate millions of people from poverty and hunger. The world is making progress in the fight to end extreme poverty.
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photo by Jim Stipe |
Worldwide, the number of people living on less than $1 a day is 980 million. This is the first time since 1981 (the year this indicator was first measured) the number of people living in extreme poverty has dropped below 1 billion. Even as the world's population has been increasing, the absolute number of people living in poverty is decreasing.
STILL, 854 million people worldwide do not have enough to eat.
In the past two decades, immunization has prevented an estimated 20 million deaths. Mothers who receive at least a primary school education are 50 percent more likely to immunize their children than mothers with no schooling.
STILL, about one-fifth of the world's adult population—771 million adults—do not have basic literacy skills. At least two-thirds of these are women.
The number of children under five who die each year has dropped below 10 million for the first time since 1960.
STILL, 28,000 children under five die every day from preventable causes, more than half of them hunger-related.
In sub-Saharan Africa, more than two-thirds of women receive prenatal care at least once during pregnancy. Since 1990, the percentage of deliveries attended by skilled healthcare personnel has steadily increased.
STILL, each year, more than 500,000 women die from treatable or preventable complications of pregnancy and childbirth. In sub-Saharan Africa, a woman's risk of dying from such complications over the course of her lifetime is 1 in 16, compared to 1 in 2,500 in the United States.
Two million people are receiving antiretroviral medications to treat HIV and AIDS, increasing their ability to lead productive lives and care for their children.
STILL, approximately 33 million people are living with HIV/AIDS in the world; 68 percent of them live in sub-Saharan Africa.
U.S. spending on poverty-focused development assistance has grown from $7.8 billion in 2001 to $14 billion in 2007.
STILL, the U.S. budget devotes only one-half of 1 percent to poverty-focused development assistance.
DID YOU KNOW?
- Today's world is home to about 6.55 billion people; more than 5 billion of them live in the developing world.
- There is 1 doctor for 350 persons in the United States, while the ratio is 1 to 10,000 in sub-Saharan Africa.
- The average distance girls and women in developing countries walk each day to fetch water is 3.6 miles.
Sources: Millennium Development Goals Report 2007, United Nations, 2007; State of the World's Mothers 2007, Save the Children, May 2007; Education for All Global Monitoring Report, 2006, UNESCO; Children and Water: Global Statistics, UNICEF; U.S. International Food Assistance Report 2006, USAID, December 2006; Making Poverty History, Church World Service, 2007; State of the World's Children 2007, UNICEF.
