How We Can Help the Poor

Of the world's 6 billion people, 2.8 billion-almost half-live on less than $2 a day, and 1.2 billion-a fifth-live on less than $1 a day. In the poorest countries, as many as one in every five children does not reach his or her fifth birthday and as many as half of the children under 5 are malnourished. Although human conditions improved more in the twentieth century than in all of the rest of history, the distribution of global gains has been extraordinarily unequal. The average income in the richest 20 countries is 37 times the average in the poorest 20-a gap that has doubled in the past 40 years. Seventy percent of all people living on less than $1 a day are in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. And conditions in some parts of the world-notably the countries of the former Soviet Union-have been getting worse: the number of people living in poverty in Central Asia and some European countries rose by more than 20 times...