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Half of the world — nearly
three billion people — live on less than two dollars a day.
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The GDP (Gross Domestic
Product) of the poorest 48 nations (i.e. a quarter of the world’s countries)
is less than the wealth of the world’s three richest people combined.
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Nearly a billion people
entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names.
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51 percent of the world’s
100 hundred wealthiest bodies are corporations.
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The wealthiest nation on Earth
has the widest gap between rich and poor of any industrialized nation.
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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.
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20% of the population in
the developed nations, consume 86% of the world’s goods.
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The top fifth of the world’s
people in the richest countries enjoy 82% of the expanding export trade
and 68% of foreign direct investment — the bottom fifth, barely more than
1%.
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In 1960, the 20% of the world’s
people in the richest countries had 30 times the income of the poorest 20% —
in 1997, 74 times as much.
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An analysis of long-term trends
shows the distance between the richest and poorest countries was about:
3 to 1 in 1820
11 to 1 in 1913
35 to 1 in 1950
44 to 1 in 1973
72 to 1 in 1992
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The developing world now spends
$13 on debt repayment for every $1 it receives in grants.
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A few hundred millionaires now
own as much wealth as the world’s poorest 2.5 billion people.
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The 48 poorest countries
account for less than 0.4 per cent of global exports.
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The combined wealth of the
world’s 200 richest people hit $1 trillion in 1999; the combined incomes of
the 582 million people living in the 43 least developed countries is $146
billion.
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Of all human rights failures
today, those in economic and social areas affect by far the larger number and
are the most widespread across the world’s nations and large numbers of people.
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Approximately 790 million
people in the developing world are still chronically undernourished, almost
two-thirds of whom reside in Asia and the Pacific.
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For economic growth and almost all
of the other indicators, the last 20 years [of the current form of
globalization, from 1980 - 2000] have shown a very clear decline in progress
as compared with the previous two decades [1960 - 1980]. For each indicator,
countries were divided into five roughly equal groups, according to what level
the countries had achieved by the start of the period (1960 or 1980). Among the
findings:
- 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.
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Today, across the world, 1.3
billion people live on less than one dollar a day; 3 billion live on under
two dollars a day; 1.3 billion have no access to clean water; 3 billion have no
access to sanitation; 2 billion have no access to electricity.
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The richest 50 million people
in Europe and North America have the same income as 2.7 billion poor people.
The slice of the cake taken by 1% is the same size as that handed to the poorest
57%.
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The world’s 497 billionaires in
2001 registered a combined wealth of $1.54 trillion, well over the combined
gross national products of all the nations of sub-Saharan Africa ($929.3
billion) or those of the oil-rich regions of the Middle East and North Africa
($1.34 trillion). It is also greater than the combined incomes of the poorest
half of humanity.
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A mere 12 percent of the
world’s population uses 85 percent of its water, and these 12 percent do not
live in the Third World.
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The total wealth of the top 8.3
million people around the world “rose 8.2 percent to $30.8 trillion in 2004,
giving them control of nearly a quarter of the world’s financial assets.
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In other words, about 0.13% of
the world’s population controlled 25% of the world’s assets in 2004.
Causes of poverty