POVERTY

I got this off the internet and thought i'd share.

1.6 billion people — a quarter of humanity — live without electricity:

Breaking that down further:
Number of people living without electricity
Region

Millions without electricity
South Asia 706
Sub-Saharan Africa 547
East Asia 224
Other 101

* The GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of the 41 Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (567 million people) is less than the wealth of the world’s 7 richest people combined.Source 18

* World gross domestic product (world population approximately 6.5 billion) in 2006 was $48.2 trillion in 2006.

* The world’s wealthiest countries (approximately 1 billion people) accounted for $36.6 trillion dollars (76%).
* The world’s billionaires — just 497 people (approximately 0.000008% of the world’s population) — were worth $3.5 trillion (over 7% of world GDP).
* Low income countries (2.4 billion people) accounted for just $1.6 trillion of GDP (3.3%)
* Middle income countries (3 billion people) made up the rest of GDP at just over $10 trillion (20.7%).Source 19

* The world’s low income countries (2.4 billion people) account for just 2.4% of world exports Source 20

The total wealth of the top 8.3 million people around the world “rose 8.2 percent to $30.8 trillion in 2004, giving them control of nearly a quarter of the world’s financial assets.”

In other words, about 0.13% of the world’s population controlled 25% of the world’s financial assets in 2004.Source 21

For every $1 in aid a developing country receives, over $25 is spent on debt repayment.Source 22

51 percent of the world’s 100 hundred wealthiest bodies are corporations.Source 23

The wealthiest nation on Earth has the widest gap between rich and poor of any industrialized nation.Source 24

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.Source 25

In 1960, the 20% of the world’s people in the richest countries had 30 times the income of the poorest 20% — in 1997, 74 times as much.Source 26

An analysis of long-term trends shows the distance between the richest and poorest countries was about:

* 3 to 1 in 1820
* 11 to 1 in 1913
* 35 to 1 in 1950
* 44 to 1 in 1973
* 72 to 1 in 1992
Source 27

“Approximately 790 million people in the developing world are still chronically undernourished, almost two-thirds of whom reside in Asia and the Pacific.”Source 28

For economic growth and almost all of the other indicators, the last 20 years [of the current form of globalization, from 1980 - 2000] have shown a very clear decline in progress as compared with the previous two decades [1960 - 1980]. For each indicator, countries were divided into five roughly equal groups, according to what level the countries had achieved by the start of the period (1960 or 1980). Among the findings:

* Growth: The fall in economic growth rates was most pronounced and across the board for all groups or countries.
* Life Expectancy: Progress in life expectancy was also reduced for 4 out of the 5 groups of countries, with the exception of the highest group (life expectancy 69-76 years).
* Infant and Child Mortality: Progress in reducing infant mortality was also considerably slower during the period of globalization (1980-1998) than over the previous two decades.
* Education and literacy: Progress in education also slowed during the period of globalization. Source 29

A mere 12 percent of the world’s population uses 85 percent of its water, and these 12 percent do not live in the Third World.Source 30