8+2 World's Greatest Challenges

New Global Citizens' program is organized around the ten (8+2) of the WORLD'S GREATEST CHALLENGES and the belief that EVERY YOUNG PERSON can play a role in solving them. 

We call them the 8+2 to designate the 8 United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the "+2" issue areas. 

Half the planet lives in extreme poverty, which means living on less than $2 a day.

Source: United Nations and Agriculture Organization

72 million children are still denied the right to education. 

Source: The Millennium Development Goals Report 2009

Women perform 66% of the world's work, produce half the world's food, but only own 1% of the world's farmland.

Source: United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) 2007

6 million children who die each year could be saved with inexpensive medicine. 

Source: The Millennium Development Goals Report 2009.

In the developing world, one woman dies every 20 minutes from complications during  pregnancy or child birth.

Source: The Millennium Development Goals Report 2009

Since the 1980s more than 60 million people have been infected with HIV; an estimated 25 million have died from related causes.

Source: United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Every day an average of 1000 children die due to water and sanitation diseases – many are easily preventable.

Source: United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

Helping to create a global system of job opportunities and strong, local economies is essential to all our work and achieving  sustainable change.

Source: UN Millennium Campaign

In the past decade an estimated 2 million children have been killed in armed conflict. Three times as many have been seriously injured or permanently disabled, many of them maimed by landmines.

Source: United Nations

There has been a five-fold increase in disasters from 1975 to 2005. Between 1975 and 2005 we have experienced severe climate change, widespread environmental degradation and increased population growth.

Source: Oxfam