Health Care and Nutrition

• Measles, malaria and diarrhea are three of the biggest killers of children — yet all are preventable or treatable
• More than 30 million children in the world are not immunized against treatable or preventable diseases
• 95 percent of all the people who get polio are under the age of 5
• HIV/AIDS has created more than 14 million orphans — 92 percent
  of them live in Africa
• Six million children under five die every year as a result of hunger
  

Education

• 134 million children between the ages of 7 to 18 have never been
  to school.
• Girls are more likely to go without schooling than boys
  — in the Middle East and North Africa, girls are three times more likely
  than boys to be denied education
• For every year of education, wages increase by a worldwide
  average of 10 percent
• Educated mothers tend to send their children to school, helping to
  break the cycle of poverty

Exploitation

• In the last decade, more than 2 million children have died as a
  direct result of armed conflict
• More than 300,000 child soldiers are exploited in armed conflicts
  in over 30 countries around the world
• 2 million children are believed to be exploited through the commercial
  sex trade
• Approximately 246 million children work
• 171 million children work in hazardous conditions

Other Facts

• Over 12,000,000 adults have died of AIDS and 13,200,000 children
  have been orphaned.
• It is estimated that the African economy loses more than $12 billion
  USD a year because of malaria.
• Wood and other biomass generate 90 to 98% of household
  energy in most African countries.
• About 65% of Africa's agricultural land suffers from soil degradation.
• Africa has the highest deforestation rate in the world, and lost
  13 million acres (5.3m hectares) of forest each year in the 1990s.
• Almost half of all Africans live on less than $1 (USD) a day
  the number of people living in poverty grew from 220,000,000
  in 1990 to 300,000,000 in 1998.
• The consumption expenditure for the average African household
  is 20% less than it was 25 years ago.
• About a third of the population is undernourished.
• Sub-Saharan Africa has the world's highest proportion of people
  living in poverty, about 48%.
• Estimated 24,500,000 people are living with HIV/AIDS. It has almost
  90% of the world's fatal Malaria cases.
• About 30% of children die or are disabled due to acute respiratory
  infections -- 60% are caused by air pollution.
• Fewer than one in five people have electrical power.
• Over 500,000,000 people depend on firewood as basic fuel,
  leading to deforestation and soil erosion.