Poverty Facts and Stats
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- Almost half the world — over three billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day.
At least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day.Source 1
- Some 1.1 billion people in developing countries have inadequate access to water, and 2.6 billion lack basic sanitation.
- Almost two in three people lacking access to clean water survive on less than $2 a day, with one in three living on less than $1 a day.
- More than 660 million people without sanitation live on less than $2 a day, and more than 385 million on less than $1 a day.
- Access to piped water into the household averages about 85% for the wealthiest 20% of the population, compared with 25% for the poorest 20%.
- 1.8 billion people who have access to a water source within 1 kilometre, but not in their house or yard, consume around 20 litres per day. In the United Kingdom the average person uses more than 50 litres of water a day flushing toilets (where average daily water usage is about 150 liters a day. The highest average water use in the world is in the US, at 600 liters day.)
- Some 1.8 million child deaths each year as a result of diarrhoea
- The loss of 443 million school days each year from water-related illness.
- Close to half of all people in developing countries suffering at any given time from a health problem caused by water and sanitation deficits.
- Millions of women spending several hours a day collecting water.
- To these human costs can be added the massive economic waste associated with the water and sanitation deficit.… The costs associated with health spending, productivity losses and labour diversions … are greatest in some of the poorest countries. Sub-Saharan Africa loses about 5% of GDP, or some $28.4 billion annually, a figure that exceeds total aid flows and debt relief to the region in 2003.Source 10
- Number of children in the world
- 2.2 billion
- Number in poverty
- 1 billion (every second child)
- Shelter, safe water and health
- For the 1.9 billion children from the developing world, there are:
- 640 million without adequate shelter (1 in 3)
- 400 million with no access to safe water (1 in 5)
- 270 million with no access to health services (1 in 7)
- Children out of education worldwide
- 121 million
- Survival for children
- Worldwide,
- 10.6 million died in 2003 before they reached the age of 5 (same as children population in France, Germany, Greece and Italy)
- 1.4 million die each year from lack of access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation
- Health of children
- Worldwide,
- 2.2 million children die each year because they are not immunized
- 15 million children orphaned due to HIV/AIDS (similar to the total children population in Germany or United Kingdom)
The poorest 10% accounted for just 0.5% and the wealthiest 10% accounted for 59% of all the consumption:
Source 16
Region | Millions without electricity |
---|---|
South Asia | 706 |
Sub-Saharan Africa | 547 |
East Asia | 224 |
Other | 101 |
- 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
- 3 to 1 in 1820
- 11 to 1 in 1913
- 35 to 1 in 1950
- 44 to 1 in 1973
- 72 to 1 in 1992Source 27
- 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
Global Priority | $U.S. Billions |
---|---|
Cosmetics in the United States | 8 |
Ice cream in Europe | 11 |
Perfumes in Europe and the United States | 12 |
Pet foods in Europe and the United States | 17 |
Business entertainment in Japan | 35 |
Cigarettes in Europe | 50 |
Alcoholic drinks in Europe | 105 |
Narcotics drugs in the world | 400 |
Military spending in the world | 780 |
Global Priority | $U.S. Billions |
---|---|
Basic education for all | 6 |
Water and sanitation for all | 9 |
Reproductive health for all women | 12 |
Basic health and nutrition | 13 |
Notes and Sources
- Sources:
- Shaohua Chen and Martin Ravallion, The developing world is poorer than we thought, but no less successful in the fight against poverty, World Bank, August 2008
- For the 95% on $10 a day, see Martin Ravallion, Shaohua Chen and Prem Sangraula, Dollar a day revisited, World Bank, May 2008. They note that 95% of developing country population lived on less than $10 a day. Using 2005 population numbers, this is equivalent to just under 79.7% of world population, and does not include populations living on less than $10 a day from industrialized nations.
The new poverty line of $1.25 a day was recently announced by the World Bank (in 2008). For many years before that it had been $1 a day. But the $1 a day used then would be $1.45 a day now if just inflation was accounted for.The new figures from the World Bank therefore confirm concerns that poverty has not been reduced by as much as was hoped, although it certainly has dropped since 1981.
However, it appears that much of the poverty reduction in the last couple of decades almost exclusively comes from China:
- China’s poverty rate fell from 85% to 15.9%, or by over 600 million people
- China accounts for nearly all the world’s reduction in poverty
- Excluding China, poverty fell only by around 10%
The use of the poverty line of $1 a day had long come under criticism for seeming arbitrary and using poor quality and limited data thus risking an underestimate of poverty. The $1.25 a day level is accompanied with some additional explanations and reasoning, including that it is a common level found amongst the poorest countries, and that $2.50 represents a typical poverty level amongst many more developing countries.
The $10 dollar a day figure above is close to poverty levels in the US, so is provided here to give a more global perspective to these numbers, although the World Bank has felt it is not a meaningful number for the poorest because they are unfortunately unlikely to reach that level any time soon.
For further details on this (as well as some additional charts), see Poverty Around The World on this web site. back
- 2007 Human Development Report (HDR), United Nations Development Program, November 27, 2007, p.25. (The report also notes that although India is rising economically, “the bad news is that this has not been translated into accelerated progress in cutting under-nutrition. One-half of all rural children [in India] are underweight for their age—roughly the same proportion as in 1992.”)
- Millennium Development Goals Report 2007
- World Bank Key Development Data & Statistics, World Bank, accessed March 3, 2008
- Luisa Kroll and Allison Fass, The World’s Richest People, Forbes, March 3, 2007
- World Bank’s list of Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (41 countries), accessed March 3, 2008
- World Bank Key Development Data & Statistics, World Bank, accessed March 3, 2008
- Luisa Kroll and Allison Fass, The World’s Richest People, Forbes, March 3, 2007
- Total debts of the developing world in 2006: $2.7 trillion
- Total official development assistance in 2006: $106 billion
- Holding Transnationals Accountable, IPS, August 11, 1998
- Top 200: The Rise of Corporate Global Power, by Sarah Anderson and John Cavanagh, Institute for Policy Studies, November 2000
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