
This is big one.
Some days ago I posted about http://www.freerice.com/, a site where you can improve your vocabulary and donate grains of rice for each word you get right. The number of people participating in this project has been growing exponentially, and flipping through information on their website, I found a list of 22 countries that are beginning to contribute to help eradicating world hunger.
Almost all of the deaths from hunger and disease that you see on this site can be stopped. The cost to do this is about $195 billion a year, according to the United Nations. Twenty-two developed countries below have pledged to work towards each giving 0.7% (a little less than 1%) of their national income in international aid, which would raise the $195 billion. Some countries are slow to meet their pledge.
Interestingly, the amounts any given country gives varies, as for example Sweden, Luxembourg, Norway, Netherlands, and Denmark each donate from between 103 and 80 cents for every 100 dollars earned in their country, and have all already met their goals, while countries such as the US, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and Switzerland, all pledge only between 17 (that's the USA) and 39 cents for every 100 dollars earned in their country, and this latter group of countries has not only not met their goals, but has not even set up a schedule for meeting them. A host of other countries have set up varying amounts, and are scheduled to meet their goals by anywhere between 2010 and 2015.
Click here to get to a page where you can print up a letter for your country's government or head of state in your language, in order to send it on to the appropriate address, to add your voice to this concern. If enough people in YOUR country do it, the goal can be achieved!
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