It Can Be Solved
When hearing these facts about poverty in the developing world,
many people feel deep sorrow but conclude that there is nothing
we can do. The scale of poverty is immense and we seem powerless
to stop it.
Such despair is understandable, but the facts tell a very different story.
While poverty is indeed both extreme and widespread, it is easy to forget
just how many people there are in the developed world and how rich we
are together. Let's start with a simple question: how much additional
money per year would be needed to meet the most basic needs of those in
poverty? According to official estimates from the United
Nations Development Program:1
| Basic education for all |
$6 billion |
 |
| Water and sanitation for all |
$9 billion |
 |
| Basic health and nutrition |
$13 billion |
 |
What do these numbers mean? A billion dollars sounds like a lot, but
on the world scale it is quite small. There are 300 million people in
the United States alone and so a billion dollars is just over three dollars
per American citizen. To really see how small these amounts are, let's
look at how much the developed world spends on various luxuries each year:2
| Cosmetics (in the USA) |
$8 billion |
 |
| Ice cream (in Europe) |
$11 billion |
 |
| Perfumes (in Europe and USA) |
$13 billion |
 |
| Pet food (in Europe and USA) |
$17 billion |
 |
| Cigarettes (in Europe) |
$50 billion |
 |
| Narcotic drugs (in the world) |
$400 billion |
 |
| Military spending (in the world) |
$780 billion |
 |
These figures speak for themselves. They show that there is enough money
in the richer nations to easily meet the most basic needs of the world's
poor without making any real impact on our quality of life.
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