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What is global poverty?

When we speak of global poverty, what do we mean?

Consider this:

• More than 1 billion people — one in six — live on less than $1 a day, and 2.7 billion live on less than $2 a day.
  Source: World Bank. PovertyNet
• In the developing world, more than 800 million people go to bed hungry each night.
  Source: FAO: Newsroom — The numbers: SOFI 2004 hunger Statistics
• About 200 million children under age five are underweight. Not getting enough to eat can stunt growth, slow thinking, sap energy and contribute to mental retardation.
  Source: World Food Programme

But poverty is more than numbers. It has a face. It’s reflected in the faces of more than one billion people around the world who live hand-to-mouth and day-to-day with little or no voice in what happens to them and their communities: the mother whose child dies from drinking unclean water; the sick old man who can’t get to a doctor; the boy who cannot read; the young girl who counts as one option selling herself.

Despite their living conditions and many barriers, people throughout the developing world are working hard to make a better life for themselves and their children.  And even the most destitute are proving they can become self-sufficient when public and private efforts help remove obstacles to education, economic progress and basic health.

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