10 Sobering Poverty Statistics That May Shock You

Revolutionary South African leader Nelson Mandela understood the collective implications of poverty and the solution to eliminate it. He once said, “Overcoming poverty is not a task of charity, it is an act of justice. Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings." Here are 10 global poverty statistics that need our attention. Photo: matterfreeman Almost half the world - over 3 billion people - live on less than $2.50 a day. Some people live for an entire day on the same amount of money an American pays for a loaf of bread. Not because they choose to, but because they have to. Their meager means has to cover the cost of food, shelter, water, medical needs and other necessities. When you add it up, there are 3 billion people who survive on about US$900 a year. The effects of poverty kills 22,000 children daily. That number is astronomical alone, but when you think of what these daily numbers add up to over a year it is even more unbelievable -- 7,920,000 children die annually because they are poor, according to UNICEF. That's more than six times the number of casualties in both world wars and the American Civil War combined. Water problems affect half of humanity. Water is a natural resource that is needed to survive, but there are millions of people who do not have access to clean water. Nearly 1.1 billion people in developing countries have inadequate access to water, and 2.6 billion lack basic sanitation. Photo: ChristianityToday Children most affected by the strain of poverty. Of the 2.2 billion children in the world, 1 billion of them live in poverty. To break it down further, for every two children in the world, one has food, clothing and shelter, and one does not. The problem of unevenly distributed resources, which leaves some people with more than enough and others barely surviving, needs to be addressed globally, especially for the sake of helpless children. Approximately 790 million people in the developing world are chronically undernourished. The basic nutritional needs of these individuals are not being met since to survive they have to eat what is at their disposal and more often than not, it isn't enough to supply them with the proper nutrients to maintain good health. Photo: Skyscrapercity One quarter of humanity -- 1.6 billion people — live without electricity. Included in this total are 706 million people from South Asia, 547 million in sub-Saharan Africa, 224 million from East Asia, and other countries make up the remaining 101 million. Among the 1.9 billion children in the developing world, millions are in need of shelter, clean water and health care. There are 640 million children without adequate shelter (1 in 3), 400 million with no access to safe water (1 in 5), and 270 million with no access to health services (1 in 7). Photo: miraclefoundation Millions of children in poverty die each year because health care needs are not met. Each year, 2.2 million children die because they are not immunized and 15 million children are orphaned as parents succumb to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. These numbers parallel the entire population of children in Germany and the United Kingdom. People living in poverty often are not provided adequate education. At the turn of the 21st century, nearly a billion people were unable to read and write. Nations that do not have a stable economy that is able to support a job market or healthcare system, also cannot pay the costs associated with providing education for its citizens. A dispiriting fact is that money is available to support education for the poor, but it is not used for that purpose. Less than 1 percent of what the world spends annually on weapons is enough to put every child in developing countries in school. But in the face of war, education is not a priority. Millions of people are dying of treatable diseases. Infectious diseases still remain at epidemic levels among the impoverished of the world. An estimated 40 million people are living with HIV/AIDS, and the number of people who die from the disease is unsettling. But even more startling are the number of deaths that occur from treatable diseases. Every year 1 million people die from malaria, a mosquito-borne disease caused by parasites, and approximately 1.8 million children die from diarrhea.

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