Of the 49 least developed countries, 31 receive less aid today than they did in 1990.

The top 1% of the world’s richest people earn as much as the poorest 57%.

Reaching the Millennium Development Goals depends on many factors, not least political will and money. It is estimated that US $100 billion in assistance a year, at a minimum, will be needed until 2015.

During the 1990s, government development assistance dropped from 0.33% to 0.22% of donor countries’ gross national income. The target is 0.7%.

More than 1.2 billion people—one in every five on Earth—survive on less than $1 a day.

Of the around six billion people in the world, at least 1.2 billion do not have access to safe drinking water.

In the 1990s, average per capita income growth was less than 3% in 125 developing and transition countries and was negative in 54.

During the 1990s, the share of people living in extreme poverty fell from 30% to 23%. But as world population increased, the number fell only by 123 million, and if booming China is left out, the number actually increased by 28 million.

Two-thirds of the world’s 876 million illiterates are women.

More than 2.4 billion people do not have proper sanitation facilities, and more than 2.2 million people die each year from diseases caused by polluted water and filthy sanitation conditions.