Our world faces many serious challenges.
• Globally, there are 1.4 billion people living on less than $1.25 a day.
• As a result of rising food prices, the number of hungry people has increased by 115 million, for a total of 963 million people worldwide.
• Nearly 1 billion people still lack access to safe sources of drinking water.
• Every day, 26,000 children under the age of 5 die from preventable causes such as undernutrition, diarrhea, unsafe water, or diseases that are easily prevented by vaccines. That’s 18 children every minute.
But important progress has been made against poverty.
• In Ghana, almost 30 percent of children under five were malnourished in 1993. In 2006, this number has dropped down to 17 percent.
• With improved routine vaccinations, global deaths from measles fell by more than two-thirds since 1990.
• In sub-Saharan Africa, deaths from measles fell by more than 91 percent.
• Sub-Saharan African countries enrolled an additional 29 million children in primary school between 1995 and 2005, thanks in large part to debt-relief efforts.
The U.S. successfully addresses many challenges of global poverty. But the way assistance is delivered often impedes progress of the world’s poor people.
• The U.S. spends just $1 out of every $16 of foreign assistance on the world’s 10 poorest countries—places like Sierra Leone, Niger, and Malawi.
• The U.S. Foreign Assistance Act, passed in 1961, now encompasses 33 different goals, 75 priority areas, and 247 directives and is executed by at least 12 departments, 25 different agencies, and almost 60 government offices.
• The U.S. ties approximately 95 percent of its foreign aid to purchases of U.S. goods and services. It is estimated that this practice decreases its effectiveness in making actual reductions in poverty by 15-30 percent.
• In 1960, the average recipient country had to deal with about a dozen donors, compared with more than 30 today. Some recipient countries receive as many as 800 new projects a year, host more than 1,000 donor missions, and must submit 2,400 quarterly progress reports.
The United States can, and should, do better in meeting the needs of our world’s hungry and poor people.
Sources:
The World Bank
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
The Millennium Development Goals Report 2008
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
Center for Global Development
U.S. Government Accountability Office
“Changing aid landscape,” Stefano Curto, Finance and Development 44, no. 4, December 2007
State of the World’s Children 2008
Data Report 2008
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