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"20% of the planet's population uses 80% of its resources and consumes 30% more than the planet can regenerate." 1
Hunger and Malnutrition
Over 2.7 billion people live on less than $2 per day, and one billion people live on less than one dollar per day. Widespread hunger, malnutrition, inadequate supply of clean water and sanitation, and a lack of basic health care persist.Some 1 billion globally people are malnourished, with 98 percent of those people living in impoverished nations.
"Every 3.6 seconds another person dies of starvation and the large majority is children under the age of 5. Six million children die annually as a result of malnutrition before they reach their fifth birthday." 2
"More than 800 million people go to bed hungry every day... 300 million are children." 3 In the U.S,, 25% of children have food insecurity.
In the last 25 years, a decrease in soil fertility, as well as land degradation and AIDS, have resulted in a 23 percent decrease in the amount of food produced per capita.
Inadequate Supply of Clean Water and Sanitation
"More than 2.6 billion people—over 40 per cent of the world's population—do not have basic sanitation,and more than one billion people have unsafe sources of drinking water." 4
Forty percent of people in the world lack access to a latrine.
"Lack of access to clean water and sanitation kills children at a rate equivalent of a jumbo jet crashing every four hours." 5
The greatest cause of infection in the world stems from inadequate sanitation.
"443 million school days are lost each year due to water-related illness." 6
Lack of Access to Reproductive Health Care
"Global rates of maternal mortality remain perilously high; one woman dies every minute of every day in pregnancy or childbirth, and for every woman who dies, another 20 suffer from injury, infection, or disease every minute." Secretary of State Hillary Clinton529,000 women and girls die and 10 million suffer from injury, infection, or disease each year during pregnancy and childbirth
70,000 women and girls die and 5 million are injured every year from botched abortions in developing nations, mostly where abortion is illegal.
The leading cause of death for girls 15-19 in poor counties is complications from pregnancy and childbirth.
An estimated 215 million women in the developing world who want to avoid pregnancy but don't have access to modern contraception.
99% of maternal mortality takes place in the developing world, primarily in sub-Saharan Africa (270,000) & South Asia (188,000)
The vast majority of maternal deaths are preventable
Impact of US Cuts to International Reproductive Health and Family Planning (RH/FP) Funding
The Obama Administration proposed for Fiscal Year 2012 $769.1 million for bilateral and multilateral international reproductive health and family planning assistance, including $47.5 million for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which works in 150 countries to prevent maternal mortality and expand access to contraception. The House voted in 2012 to cut international RH/ FP to $440 million and to totally defund UNFPA or a staggering $329 million to the Obama Proposal and $208 million cut from 2010.- For every $10 million cut from the international family planning and reproductive health program:
- 610,000 fewer women and couples would receive contraceptive services and supplies;
- 90,000 more unintended pregnancies, and 82,000 more unplanned births, would occur;
- 83,000 more abortions would take place (of which 60,000 would be unsafe);
- 500 more maternal deaths would occur;
- 59,000 more years of health life would be lost; and
- 2,300 more children would lose their mothers. 7
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