3billion people—one-quarter of the world’s population live in absolute poverty, struggling to survive on less than one dollar a day. Seventy percent of them are women and children. I dream of a day when people learn how to share so that children do not have to die. It would only cost an extra $7 billion a year to put every child in school by the year 2010, giving them hope for a better life. This is less money than Americans spend on cosmetics in one year; it is less than Europeans spend on ice cream. People say, “We can’t end world poverty; it just can’t be done.” The 1997 UnitedNations Development Report carries a clear message that poverty can be ended if we make it our goal. The document states that the world has the materials and natural resources, the know-how, and the people to make a poverty-free world a reality in less than one generation.
Why does Kielburger provide this information? What effect might he hope this section has on the reader?