While we are busy with the luxury of politicking.....

What do these mean to the Rapera?

While the world is globalizing and the mainstream media in many developed nations point out that economies are booming (or, in periods of downturns, that the current forms of development and economic policies are the only ways for people to prosper), there is an increasing number of poor people who are missing out on this apparent boom, while increasingly fewer people are becoming far wealthier. Some of these facts and figures are an eye-opener, to say the least.

• Half the world — nearly three billion people — live on less than two dollars a day.Source 1
• More than 80 percent of the world’s population lives in countries where income differentials are widening.Source 2
• 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.Source 3
• According to UNICEF, 26,500-30,000 children die each day due to poverty. And they “die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death.”Source 4
• Around 27-28 percent of all children in developing countries are estimated to be underweight or stunted. The two regions that account for the bulk of the deficit are South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
• Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names.Source 7
• 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.
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%).
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: http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats