In 2008, 1.29 billion people – 22.4 percent of the world’s population – lived below the World Bank’s international poverty line of $1.25 a day. In sub-Saharan Africa, 47.5 percent of people live below the line. This absolute poverty line aims to denote the income “needed to purchase a very basic basket of food items, chosen to meet minimal nutritional requirements, and a similarly minimal set of essential nonfood items.” A “second tier” international poverty line of $2 a day puts 2.47 billion people in poverty. About one third of all deaths worldwide – 18 million a year – result from poverty-related causes; about 7 million children a year die of hunger and preventable diseases. The malnutrition rate for sub-Saharan Africa is 42 percent, for South Asia 47 percent. By contrast, about a billion people – including myself and just about anyone reading this book – live well by any reasonable standard. In North America the malnutrition rate is 4 percent.

This is a bad situation. It just doesn’t seem right. It shouldn’t be. What more can be said and what more should be said?