Fantastic stats

Rav Casley Gera — Sun, 12 Nov 2006 18:09:32 +0000

The Africa Commission Report is peppered with some of the most eye-catching statistics about Africa’s development plight. Now, we all know out-of-context statistics aren’t to be trusted. But they sound really good when you drop them into conversations.

To make things interesting I’ve jumbled them up. Can you match the figure to the fact?

1 in 3	The proportion of Africa’s HIV-positive population who are between 15 and 49
25%	Total humanitarian aid to Africa, 1995-2001 (US dollars)
24	The proportion of Africans who place primary blame for their problems on the former colonial powers
49%	The proportion of US oil imports that will come from Africa by 2016
16%	By 2010, the proportion of Zambian children who will be orphans
11%	The proportion of Africans who place primary blame for their problems on modern-day rich countries
7 billion	The Total cost of the Commission’s proposals (US dollars)
2.86 billion	The proportion of Africa’s population that is under 18
6	The number of African countries with GDP growth of 5% or more in 2003
50%	The proportion of Africans who place primary blame for their problems on their government
90%	1 year’s UN peacekeeping expenditure in Africa, June 2004-June 2005 (US dollars)
75 billion	The cost of an AK-47 rifle in some areas in Africa (US dollars)