UP Ibalon Bicol: A plastic bottle for a shoe

A plastic bottle for a shoe

8/30/2008 | Posted by mesiamd | Edit Post

When was the last time we heard this? I mean, the story of a guy who complained of not having a pair of Nike shoes until he saw someone so poor that he crafted a shoe out of a discarded plastic water bottles…a barefooted man, or an amputee who doesn’t have feet so he can walk? Many times, images like these knock at our senses and make us numb. Be kind and generous, says a friend who sent me this in an email.

World Poverty at a Glance:

Region --------------------Population in $1/day poverty (millions)
East Asia & Pacific-----------170.0
Latin America ----------------47.0
& Caribbean
South Asia--------------------456.0
Sub-Saharan Africa----------309.0
Total Devel'g Countries-----982.0 million

Europe & Central Asia --------1.0
Middle East N. Africa---------4.0

Total---------------------------987 million
Source: http://web.worldbank.org/

“The causes of poverty include poor people's lack of resources, an extremely unequal income distribution in the world and within specific countries, conflict, and hunger itself. As of 2008 (2004 statistics), the World Bank has estimated that there were an estimated 982 million poor people in developing countries who live on $1 a day or less (World Bank, Understanding Poverty, Chen 2004). This compares to the FAO estimate of 850 million undernourished people.

Extreme poverty remains an alarming problem in the world’s developing regions, despite the advances made in the 1990s till now, which reduced "dollar a day" poverty from (an estimated) 1.23 billion people to 982 million in 2004, a reduction of 20 percent over the period. Progress in poverty reduction has been concentrated in Asia, and especially, East Asia, with the major improvement occurring in China. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the number of people in extreme poverty has increased." Source: www.worldhunger.org.=0=