Overview of global poverty
- 736 million people live in extreme poverty. About half of the world’s poor, around 368 million, live in just five countries: India, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia and Bangladesh.
- In developing regions, one in 10 people live on less than $1.90 a day.
- An estimated 2.5 billion people lack access to improved sanitation (more than 35 percent of the world’s population).
- One billion people live without electricity and hundreds of millions more live with unreliable or expensive power.
- Poverty reduction rates are expected to slow down over the next decade.
Poverty is the principal cause of hunger
- As of 2018, 822 million people are hungry worldwide; that’s one in nine people.
- Over 2 billion people lack regular access to safe, nutritious, and sufficient food (about 18 percent).
- 785 million people drink unsafe water or have to travel more than 30 minutes to drink safe water.
- According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, in order for food security to exist, four dimensions must be fulfilled: 1) physical availability of food, 2) economic and physical access to food, 3) food utilization and 4) the stability of those other dimensions over time.
What would it cost to end world hunger by 2030?
World hunger can be eliminated with an additional $265 billion per year in additional resources.
FAO
How does that compare to other political priorities?
- $668 billion: 2018 U.S. Defense Budget
- $393.5 billion: Interest Payment on Debt
- $34 billion: Contract with Lockheed Martin for F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Program
The effects of poverty on children
- “The poorest 20 percent of the world’s children are twice as likely as the richest 20 percent to be stunted by poor nutrition and to die before their 5th birthday.”
- 2.5 million newborns worldwide die within their first month of life.
- Almost 200 million children under the age of 5 in developing regions are underweight for their age.
- 19.4 million infants in the least developed countries are not protected from diseases by routine immunization.
- 2.8 million children under the age of 19 currently live with HIV.
- 264 million children were out of school in 2015, with Sub-Saharan Africa having the
highest out-of-school rates.