An Iraqi woman requests more rice from a window of a soup kitchen used to feed Iraqis in need. An estimated 23% of Iraqis live below the poverty line. © Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Every year, more than 6 million children die from malnutrition.  Every day, more than 800 million people go to bed hungry.  Every minute, a woman dies in pregnancy or childbirth.  All of these tragedies have one thing in common: poverty.  Poverty is a human rights issue, one that affects people in every nation across the globe.

Today is the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, a day that started in 1993 by the UN “to promote awareness of the need to eradicate poverty and destitution in all countries.”  Soon thereafter, at the Millennium Summit in 2000, leaders from around the globe laid out a specific goal: cutting the number of people living in extreme poverty, those whose income is less than one dollar a day, in half by 2015. Half by 2015. And, though substantial progress has been made in many countries, not surprisingly, we are not on track to meet this goal. SEE THE REST OF THIS POST