Facts On Poverty

• More than 1.2 billion people—one in every five on Earth—survive on less than $1 a day
• The top 1% of the world’s richest people earn as much as the poorest 57%
• In the 1990s average per capita income growth was less than 3% in 125 developing and transition countries, and was negative in 54
• During the 1990s the share of people living in extreme poverty fell from 30% to 23%. But as world population increased, the number fell only by 123 million, and if booming China is left out, the number actually increased by 28 million
• Of the around six billion people in the world, at least 1.2 billion do not have access to safe drinking water
• More than 2.4 billion people do not have proper sanitation facilities, and more than 2,2 million people die each year from diseases caused by polluted water and filthy sanitation conditions
• Two-thirds of the world’s 876 million illiterates are women
• About 80% of economically active women in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia work in agriculture
• The annual dairy subsidy in the EU amounts to $913 per cow per year; EU’s aid to Africa is $8 per African per year