2008 Offering of Letters
"If you feed those who are hungry and take care of the needs of those who are troubled, then your light will shine in the darkness, and you will be bright like the noonday sun"
--Isaiah 58:10
Bread for the World's 2008 Offering of Letters is pushing for more and better poverty-focused development assistance—funding for programs in the U.S. budget that give people in poor countries the skills and opportunities to break the cycle of poverty permanently. These include long-term investments in things like education, agriculture, nutrition, health and clean water.
The United States should provide more of this kind of assistance because we are not on track to meet the goals and fulfill the promises our country has made in recent years. And we must improve the way U.S. assistance is packaged and delivered so that it reaches those in greatest need with the maximum impact.
Hunger & Poverty Facts *
Worldwide, the number of people living on less than $1 a day is 980 million. This is the first time since 1981 (the year this indicator was first measured) the number of people living in extreme poverty has dropped below 1 billion. Even as the world's population has been increasing, the absolute number of people living in poverty is decreasing.
STILL, 854 million people worldwide do not have enough to eat.
U.S. spending on poverty-focused development assistance has grown from $7.8 billion in 2001 to $14 billion in 2007.
STILL, the U.S. budget devotes only one-half of 1 percent to poverty-focused development assistance.
Facts about Zambia **
Location: Zambia is a landlocked country in southern Africa. It is slightly larger than Texas.
Population: 12 million.
Religions: Primarily Christian; also Muslim, Hindu, and indigenous beliefs.
Life Expectancy: 38 years.
Population Living on $1 a day: 64%
Population Undernourished: 46%
Access to Clean Water: 58%
The number of children under five who die each year has dropped below 10 million for the first time since 1960.
STILL, 28,000 children under five die every day from preventable causes, more than half of them hunger-related.
VIDEO: See how your efforts can make a difference in the lives of children worldwide.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lie0ZgG-Bw4
More Information (pdf format)
* Sources: Millennium Development Goals Report 2007, United Nations, 2007; State of the World's Mothers 2007, Save the Children, May 2007; State of the World's Children 2007, UNICEF.
** Source: CIA World Factbook, World Bank Development Indicators 2007, The State of the World¹s Children.