Poverty

Enough for everyone…

Poverty factoid One person dies every three seconds as a direct result of extreme poverty.
The United Nations

• Around 25,000 people die every day of hunger or hunger-related causes, according to the United Nations (UN).
• Yet there's plenty of food in the world for everyone.
• But if you're trapped in severe poverty you can't buy enough food, so you become sick, so you become less able to work, so you become even poorer and hungrier. And so it goes on.
• Other problems of poverty include Aids, diarrhoea and malaria.

What can the rich countries do?

• The cost of stopping the hunger and disease resulting from poverty is about $195 billion a year, according to the UN.
• 22 developed countries have pledged to give 0.7% (a little less than 1%) of their national income in international aid, which would raise all the money needed.
• Some countries have met their goal already, others are scheduled to, and others – including the USA, New Zealand, Australia and Canada - have no schedule at all.
• The UK is scheduled to meet its goal by 2013.

What can we do?

• You can write a letter to Gordon Brown supporting the 0.7% pledge. You can print out a letter to sign and send at poverty.com – the first link below.
• Or you can donate money yourself, either by making a personal donation or doing a sponsored activity. You can find a list of charities that aim to address poverty at justgiving.com, linked below.

Written by Ali Cronin

Last updated 17th June 2007

Further help and advice

• Poverty.com: print a letter to send to Gordon Brown.
• Make Poverty History: advice on pressuring politicians and decision makers to get rid of poverty.
• Justgiving.com: list of anti-poverty charities.
• World Vision

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