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Know Your World: Facts About Hunger and Poverty

World Population

  • 6.8 billion1

World Hunger

  • 870 million people do not have enough to eat — more than the populations of USA and the European Union combined.2
  • 98% of the world's undernourished people live in developing countries.2
  • Two-thirds of the world's hungry live in just 7 countries: Bangladesh, China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia and Pakistan.2
  • Where is hunger the worst?
    • Asia and the Pacific: 578 million3
    • Sub-Saharan Africa: 239 million3
    • Latin America and the Caribbean: 53 million3

Aiming at the very heart of hunger, The Hunger Project is currently committed to work in Bangladesh, Benin, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, India, Ghana, Malawi, Mexico, Mozambique, Peru, Senegal and Uganda.

Women and Children

  • 60 percent of the world's hungry are women.4
  • 50 percent of pregnant women in developing countries lack proper maternal care, resulting in over 300,000 maternal deaths annually from childbirth.4
  • 1 out of 6 infants are born with a low birth weight in developing countries.5

  • Malnutrition is the key factor contributing to more than one-third of all global child deaths resulting in 2.6 million deaths per year.14

  • A third of all childhood death in sub-Saharan Africa is caused by hunger.6
  • Every five seconds, a child dies from hunger-related diseases.6

The Hunger Project firmly believes that empowering women to be key change agents is an essential element to achieving the end of hunger and poverty. Wherever we work, our programs aim to support women and build their capacity.

HIV/AIDS and other Diseases

  • 35 million people are living with HIV/AIDS.7
  • 65 percent of young people living with HIV/AIDS are women.7
  • 90 percent of all children and 60 percent of all women living with HIV are in sub-Saharan Africa.7
  • More than 11 million children die each year from preventable health issues such as malaria, diarrhea and pneumonia.6

Launched in 2003, The Hunger Project's HIV/AIDS and Gender Inequality Campaign works at the grassroots level to provide education about preventative and treatment measures.

Poverty

  • 1.4 billion people in developing countries live on $1.25 a day or less.8
  • Rural areas account for three out of every four people living on less than $1.25 a day.9
  • 22,000 children die each day due to conditions of poverty.10

Rural Hunger Project partners have access to income-generating workshops, empowering their self-reliance. Our Microfinance Program in Africa provides access to credit, adequate training and instilling in our partners the importance of saving.

Agriculture

  • 75 percent of the world's poorest people — 1.4 billion women, children, and men — live in rural areas and depend on agriculture and related activities for their livelihood.11
  • 50 percent of hungry people are farming families.11

In each region in which we work, The Hunger Project provides tools and training to increase farming production at the local level. In Africa, our epicenter partners run community farms where they implement new techniques while producing food for the epicenter food bank.

Water

  • 1.7 billion people lack access to clean water.12
  • 2.3 billion people suffer from water-borne diseases each year.12
  • 12 percent of the world's population uses 85 percent of its water, and none of the 12 percent lives in developing countries.13

The Hunger Project works with communities to develop new water resources, ensure clean water and improved sanitation, and implement water conservation techniques

 

Sources:

  1. US Census Bureau, International Data Base
  2. State of Food Security in the World 2012
  3. FAO FAQs on Hunger, 2010
  4. MDG Report - Goal 5, 2010 (pdf)
  5. World Hunger and Poverty Statistics, 2010
  6. MDG Report - Goal 4, 2010 (pdf)
  7. UN AIDS Report on the Global Epidemic, 2010
  8. IFAD Rural Poverty Report 2011
  9. Human Development Report, 2007/2008
  10. UNICEF State of the World's Children, 2010 (pdf)
  11. FAO Addressing Food Insecurity, 2010 (pdf)
  12. WHO Unsafe Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (pdf)
  13. Water as Commodity - The Wrong Prescription by Maude Barlow, The Institute for Food and Development Policy
  14. A Life Free From Hunger: Tackling Child Malnutrition, Save the Children, Feb 2012