ABSTRACT
In today’s affluent world approximately one-third of the human population lives in a state of poverty. Around 870 million people-more than the populations of the United States and European Union combined-suffer from chronic hunger and nearly 900 million people have no access to safe drinking water. More than 350,000 women die every year during pregnancy or childbirth. In the 30 minutes it takes to read this chapter, approximately 400 children under the age of five will have died, mostly from readily preventable causes. Every day around the world hundreds of millions of people are denied the opportunity to lead a secure and productive life-but it does not have to be this way. Humanity has developed the technology and accumulated the recourses to satisfy the basic needs of all. Food, education, healthcare services, and others could be provided if our world was organized differently. In short, poverty can be reduced if tackled more efficiently through the structures of global governance.
