In sub-Saharan Africa, fewer than 1 in 5 girls make it to secondary school.

Sub-Saharan Africa is also home to 400 million of the world's poorest people.

In India there are more poor people in three states... than there are in the whole of sub-Saharan Africa.

One of the challenges for sub-Saharan Africa is that markets are of modest size. This makes regional integration important.

Half of the hospital beds in sub-Saharan Africa are filled with people suffering from what are generally known as water-related diseases.

The leading cause of death for girls 15 to 19 worldwide is not accident or violence or disease; it is complications from pregnancy. Girls under 15 are up to five times as likely to die while having children than are women in their 20s, and their babies are more likely to die as well.