As many as 1.4 billion people, or one-quarter of the population of the developing world, live on less than $1.25 a day.1 While over the past 20 years this statistic has decreased in the East Asia and Pacific regions of the world, it has increased in all other regions. At the same time, the number of those at risk of falling into poverty has almost doubled.
Opportunities are not equally distributed. A child whose parents subsist on a meager income and live in a rural area lives with a very different set of circumstances than a child whose parents are middle-income earners in an urban area. United Way creates opportunities for a better life for all by focusing on the individual needs of communities around the world.
To address the obstacles that prevent hard working families from getting ahead financially, United Way promotes community-change strategies to help families meet their basic needs, while gaining the financial capability to plan for, and accomplish, their long-term financial goals.
1 The World Bank, http://go.worldbank.org/33CTPSVDC0