Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP)

"There is great diversity among our group, but we know that we will be more effective when we work together. We do not endeavour to reach absolute agreement on detailed policy, but we want to pressure governments to eradicate poverty, dramatically lessen inequality, and achieve the Millennium Development Goals."[2]

The demands:

• Public accountability, just governance and the fulfillment of human rights

• Trade justice

• A major increase in the quantity and quality of aid and financing for development

• Debt cancellation

• Gender equality

The campaign demands that gender equality be recognized as a central issue for poverty eradication. The campaign further demands that upholding the rights of children, youth, women and other excluded groups, as well as ensuring their equal participation, be recognised as fundamental to the achievement of these goals.

POVERTY AND HUNGER FACTS

• Over 1 billion people live on less than $1 a day with nearly half the world’s population (2.8 billion) living on less than $2 a day.

• From 1990 to 2002, in sub-Saharan Africa, although the poverty rate declined marginally, the number of people living in extreme poverty increased by 140 million.

• More than 800 million people go to bed hungry every day... 300 million are children. Of these 300 million children, only eight percent are victims of famine or other emergency situations. More than 90 percent are suffering long-term malnourishment and micro nutrient deficiency.

• Every 3.6 seconds another person dies of starvation and the large majority are children under the age of 5.

• An estimated 824 million people in the developing world were affected by chronic hunger in 2003.

• In the early 1990s, the number of hungry people in Eastern Asia declined, but again it is on the rise.

• Every hour more than 1,200 children die away from the glare of media attention. This is equivalent to three tsunamis a month, every month. The overwhelming majority can be traced to a single pathology : poverty.

• In 2001–03, FAO estimates there were still 854 million undernourished people worldwide: 820 million in the developing countries, 25 million in the transition countries and 9 million in the industrialized countries.

• Every year six million children die from malnutrition before their fifth birthday.

Reference(s):

[1]http://www.whiteband.org/about-gcap/what-is-gcap
[2]GCAP - Wikipedia
[3]http://www.whiteband.org/resources/issues/did-you-know