1.6 billion people — a quarter of humanity — live without electricity: Breaking that down further: Number of people living without electricity Region Millions without electricity South Asia 706 Sub-Saharan Africa 547 East Asia 224 Other 101 The GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of the 41 Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (567 million people) is less than the wealth of the world’s 7 richest people combined.Source 18 World gross domestic product (world population approximately 6.5 billion) in 2006 was $48.2 trillion in 2006. The world’s wealthiest countries (approximately 1 billion people) accounted for $36.6 trillion dollars (76%). The world’s billionaires — just 497 people (approximately 0.000008% of the world’s population) — were worth $3.5 trillion (over 7% of world GDP). Low income countries (2.4 billion people) accounted for just $1.6 trillion of GDP (3.3%) Middle income countries (3 billion people) made up the rest of GDP at just over $10 trillion (20.7%).Source 19 The world’s low income countries (2.4 billion people) account for just 2.4% of world exportsSource 20 The total wealth of the top 8.3 million people around the world “rose 8.2 percent to $30.8 trillion in 2004, giving them control of nearly a quarter of the world’s financial assets.” In other words, about 0.13% of the world’s population controlled 25% of the world’s financial assets in 2004. A conservative estimate for 2010 finds that at least a third of all private financial wealth, and nearly half of all offshore wealth, is now owned by world’s richest 91,000 people – just 0.001% of the world’s population. The next 51 percent of all wealth is owned by the next 8.4 million — just 0.14% of the world’s population. Almost all of it has managed to avoid all income and estate taxes, either by the countries where it has been invested and or where it comes fromSource 21 For every $1 in aid a developing country receives, over $25 is spent on debt repayment.Source 22 51 percent of the world’s 100 hundred wealthiest bodies are corporations.Source 23 The wealthiest nation on Earth has the widest gap between rich and poor of any industrialized nation.Source 24 The poorer the country, the more likely it is that debt repayments are being extracted directly from people who neither contracted the loans nor received any of the money.Source 25 In 1960, the 20% of the world’s people in the richest countries had 30 times the income of the poorest 20% — in 1997, 74 times as much.Source 26 An analysis of long-term trends shows the distance between the richest and poorest countries was about: 3 to 1 in 1820 11 to 1 in 1913 35 to 1 in 1950 44 to 1 in 1973 72 to 1 in 1992Source 27 globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats
Posted on: Mon, 02 Dec 2013 10:20:17 +0000
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