last month, the house voted to make drastic cuts in this year's budget. poverty-fighting, cost effective programs were cut. life saving programs that fight aids, malaria and hunger were cut by 40% and programs that promote long term economic growth were chopped by almost 30%. these programs - which make up less than 1 percent of the budget - save millions of lives and help lift people out of poverty for the long term. i'm not sure when the scale was tipped in this country and our elected representatives started debating and voting on whether we should be helping the poor. why not first try reducing military spending or eliminating corporate subsidies and tax loopholes for the rich?
here are some statistics: - there are 925 million hungry people in the world
- in round numbers there are 7 billion people in the world. thus, with an estimated 925 million hungry people, 13.1 percent, or almost 1 in 7 people are hungry
- worldwide, 4.6 billion people have cell phones, but only 4.3 billion have access to a toilet
- at least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day
- number of children in the world: 2.2 billion - number in poverty: 1billion (every second child)
- according to UNICEF, 22,000 children die each day due to poverty
- for every $1 in aid a developing country receives, over $25 is spent on debt repayment
- some 1.1 billion people in developing countries have inadequate access to water, and 2.6 billion lack basic sanitation
- the poorest 40 percent of the world’s population accounts for 5 percent of global income. the richest 20 percent accounts for three-quarters of world income
- every year, an estimated 358,000 mothers die from complications during child birth and 8.1 million children die before their fifth birthday
- approximately 12,000 people die every day from HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. nearly two-thirds of these people are living in sub-saharan africa
No comments:
Post a Comment