But just the three richest individuals in the world own assets that exceed the annual domestic product of the 48 poorest countries. Among the billions of people in poor countries, it's true that three-fifths have no access to good sanitation. A third need safe drinking water. A fourth lack adequate housing. At least a fifth need modern health services, or basic education, or food to overcome malnutrition, or all three.
Westerners spend more on perfume.
The writer Germaine Greer once told a UU congregation I was serving how she'd gone to a village in India on behalf of family planning. The villagers, as a reward for taking part in a government sterilization scheme, had been given a new well and community hall. They all gathered in the latter to hear her. 300 people huddled together with their children in just half the big new meeting space, leaving the other half just for memsahib. But neither are the poor.