MENUPoverty: Facts and Statistics
What is poverty?
"... a denial of choices and opportunities, a violation of human dignity. It means lack of basic capacity to participate effectively in society. It means not having enough to feed and clothe a family, not having a school or clinic to go to, not having the land on which to grow one’s food or a job to earn one’s living, not having access to credit. It means insecurity, powerlessness and exclusion of individuals, households and communities. It means susceptibility to violence, and it often implies living on marginal or fragile environments, without access to clean water or sanitation"
What is Poverty Line?
"The estimated minimum level of income needed to secure the necessities of life."
"A minimum income level used as an official standard for determining the proportion of a population living in poverty"
Facts Summary
- 925 million people do not have enough to eat (undernourished) - more than the populations of USA, Canada and the European Union combined. 98 percent of these undernourished/hungry people live in developing countries
- 1 in 7 people in the world will go to bed hungry tonight
- 1 out of 4 children in the developing countries are underweight
- Two-thirds of the world's hungry live in just 7 countries: Bangladesh, China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia and Pakistan
- Hunger is the world's No. 1 health risk - kills more people than AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis combined
- Every day, poverty kills more than 50,000 innocent people - 18 million every year - one third of all human deaths
- More people die as a result of extreme poverty than of any other cause
- Every five seconds, a child dies from hunger-related diseases.
- Undernutrition contributes to five million deaths of children under five each year in developing countries.
- 50 percent of pregnant women in developing countries lack proper maternal care, resulting in over 300,000 maternal deaths annually from childbirth
- 22,000 children die each day due to conditions of poverty
- Around 1.4 billion people in developing countries live below the poverty line.
- 1.7 billion people lack access to clean water.
- About 40 percent people in Pakistan live around the poverty line
- The GDP (Gross Domestic Product, total of everyone's income) in the poorest 48 nations is less than the combined wealth of the world's three richest people.
- 20% of the population in developed nations consumes 86% of the world's goods
- Less than 1 percent of what the world spends each year on weapons could put every child in school.
- The developing nations spend $25 on debt repayment for every $1 of aid they receive
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