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 Increasing urbanization, especially in developing countries, is aggravating poverty.
Some 21 million new housing units will be required annually in developing countries to accommodate the growth in number of households during the 2000-2010 period. As urban populations grow, the pressure on already overloaded services and infrastructure will increase.
—United Nations’ Centre for Human Settlements,State of the World’s Cities 2001 |
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 The highest population growth is taking place in developing countries, where resources to fight poverty already are more scarce.
Last year, the 15 European Union nations together recorded a natural population growth—births minus deaths—of 343,000. It took India just a week to match that.
—United Nations Population Division
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 People die from being poor.
“While globally there is enough food to supply the world’s population, extreme poverty and the unequal distribution of wealth make it impossible for millions to adequately nourish themselves.”
—World Food Programme
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 The combined aspects of poverty —hunger, unemployment, poor housing, lack of education— create a vicious circle.
“You won’t eradicate poverty if lots of people are hungry. …People who are hungry cannot study very well and
cannot work very well.”
—Andrew MacMillan, Food and Agriculture Organization expert
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 Almost half the world’s population lives on less than $2 a day.
It has been estimated that in 1998, 1.2 billion people worldwide hadconsumption levels below $1 a day, and 2.8 billion people lived on less than $2 a day.
—World Bank’s PovertyNet
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 Poverty is expensive.
“There is a great cost burden from poor health in substandard housing, borne by homeowners and society at large. The costs associated with building better, healthier homes are modest by comparison with the health costs resulting from poverty and low-standard housing.”
—Alison Freeman, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
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 Poverty of the spirit can harm as well as physical poverty.
“A better life for me is to be healthy, peaceful and to live in love without hunger. Love is more than anything. Money has no value in the absence of love.”
—poor older woman in Ethiopia,World Bank PovertyNet |
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 Adequate housing is a basic human right.
The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights identified housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living in 1948. |
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