Desire is half of life, indifference is half of death.
- Kahlil Gibran
Some Facts About Poverty:
Half the world — nearly three billion people — live on less than two dollars
a day.
The GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of the poorest 48 nations (i.e. a quarter
of the world’s countries) is less than the wealth of the world’s three richest
people combined.
Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book
or sign their names.
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.
51 percent of the world’s 100 hundred wealthiest bodies are corporations.
The wealthiest nation on Earth has the widest gap between rich and poor
of any industrialized nation.
The poorer the country, the more likely it is that debt repayments are
being extracted directly from people who neither contracted the loans nor
received any of the money.
20% of the population in the developed nations, consume 86% of the world’s
goods.
“The lives of 1.7 million children will be needlessly lost this year [2000]
because world governments have failed to reduce poverty levels”
The developing world now spends $13 on debt repayment for every $1 it receives
in grants.