We need to address the causes of poverty rather than treat the symptoms (outward signs).  There are better ways to help people. Helping single children, or even villages, treats the symptoms of poverty - it makes life better for a small minority. It does little to address the actual causes of poverty such as war, unclean water, bad government, HIV/AIDS, unfair world trade rules, etc. As these statistics show the problems of poverty and disease are truly massive in scale, and even if many thousands are helped by sponsorship schemes, many millions more are still left with nothing. If we really want to help lift people out of poverty for good, we should give to charities which focus on these bigger development issues - for example Christian Aid believes that “it is better to help whole communities through our partner organisations rather than sponsor individuals" [16]. We should also join campaigns to make rich world governments do more to help the developing world by increasing spending on aid [17], forgiving debt, and making the global trade rules fairer for developing countries.