Fact 1 - Every year six million children die from malnutrition before their fifth birthday.

Fact 2 - More than 50 percent of Africans suffer from water-related diseases such as cholera and infant diarrhea.

Fact 3 - Everyday HIV/AIDS kills 6,000 people and another 8,200 people are infected with this deadly virus.

Fact 4 - Every 30 seconds an African child dies of malaria-more than one million child deaths a year.

Fact 5 - Each year, approximately 300 to 500 million people are infected with malaria. Approximately three million people die as a result.

Fact 6 - TB is the leading AIDS-related killer and in some parts of Africa, 75 percent of people with HIV also have TB.

Fact 7 - More than 800 million people go to bed hungry every day; 300 million are children.

Fact 8 - Every 3.6 seconds another person dies of starvation and the large majority are children under the age of 5.

Fact 9 - More than 2.6 billion people-over 40 per cent of the world's population-do not have basic sanitation

Fact 10 - Four out of every ten people in the world don't have access even to a simple latrine.

Fact 11 - Five million people, mostly children, die each year from water-borne diseases.

Fact 12 - In 1960, Africa was a net exporter of food; today the continent imports one-third of its grain.

Fact 13 - More than 40 percent of Africans do not even have the ability to obtain sufficient food on a day-today basis.

Fact 14 - For the African farmer, conventional fertilizers cost two to six times more than the world market price.

Fact 15 - Above 80 percent of farmers in Africa are women.

Fact 16 - More than 40 percent of women in Africa do not have access to basic education.

Fact 17 - If a girl is educated for six years or more, as an adult her prenatal care, postnatal care and childbirth survival rates, will dramatically and consistently improve.

Fact 18 - Educated mothers immunize their children 50 percent more often than mothers who are not educated.

Fact 19 - AIDS spreads twice as quickly among uneducated girls than among girls that have even some schooling.

Fact 20 - The children of a woman with five years of primary school education have a survival rate 40 percent higher than children of women with no education.

Fact 21 - A woman living in sub-Saharan Africa has a 1 in 16 chance of dying in pregnancy. This compares with a 1 in 3,700 risk for a woman from North America.

Fact 22 - Every minute, a woman somewhere dies in pregnancy or childbirth.

Fact 23 - Almost half of births in developing countries take place without the help of a skilled birth attendant.