FROM THE EDITORS January 19, 2009 Issue

NO HOPELESS NUMBERS

ANYONE CAN PLAY A PART IN HELPING THE BILLIONS IN NEED OF COMFORT AND HEALING.

Editor

1.4 BILLION. According to the World Bank, that is now the number of people in the world who live in poverty. It's a number that was revised upward last year—by close to 50 percent.

That statistic may seem beyond human comprehension; how does the average person possibly reference a number so big? But the significance becomes apparent as soon as news video or a face-to-face encounter provides some glimpse into the actual lives that make up that number. Big as it is, it represents individuals—real people who, just like everyone, want a better existence for themselves and the people they love.

Oxford professor Paul Collier recently made an important observation in The New York Times about prospects for improving the lives of the world's poorest people. Writing from Zambia, one of the world's poorest nations, where the average per capita annual income is about $921, Collier noted that, although the number of poor people in China and India actually far exceeds that of Africa, a greater increase in Chinese and Indian incomes is providing people with more of a very important ingredient: hope. He observed that "hope makes a difference in people's ability to tolerate poverty; parents are willing to sacrifice as long as their children have a future." He concluded, "Our top priority should be to provide credible hope where it has been lacking" ("A measure of hope," September 22, 2008).

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