We inhabit this world with large numbers of people who are very badly off through no fault of their own. The statistics are overwhelming: some 850 million human beings are chronically undernourished, 1,037 million lack access to safe water, and 2,747 million lack access to improved sanitation. About 2,000 million lack access to essential drugs. Roughly 1,000 million have no adequate shelter and 2,000 million lack electricity. Some 799 million adults are illiterate and 250 million children between ages five and fourteen do wage work outside their household – often under harsh or cruel conditions: as soldiers, prostitutes, or domestic servants, or in agriculture, construction, textile, or carpet production. Some 2,735 million people, 44 percent of humankind, are reported to be living below the World Bank's US $2/day international poverty line. Roughly one-third of all human deaths, 18 million annually or 50,000 each day, are due to poverty-related causes, readily preventable through better nutrition, safe drinking water, cheap hydration packs, vaccines, antibiotics, and other medicines. People of color, females, and the very young are heavily overrepresented among the global poor and hence also among those suffering the staggering effects of severe poverty.

The people appearing in these statistics live in distant, underdeveloped countries. Some of us in the rich countries care about and seek to improve their circumstances. But it is difficult to do this on one's own. So we cooperate with others.