Social injustice impedes growth and development, hampering or even halting improvement in living standards, fair distribution of income, creation of opportunities, and the elimination of inequalities. The inadequacy of economic growth, imbalances in economic structures, and imperfections in education and training systems contribute to, and are aggravated by, unjust conditions in the world.
In 1991 it was reported by Oxfam that across the globe: one in six families is poorer than a decade ago; one in four children go to bed hungry; three quarters of the poor people in the developing world live in ecologically fragile zones where resources are scarce; more than 300 million subsistence farmers are clearing native vegetation because they have no other way to survive (accounting for half of tropical deforestation); in Bangladesh and Egypt, 50 million people could be made homeless by flooding caused by rising sea levels; and by the start of 1989, debtor nations owned foreign creditors just over half their combined gross national product, and two thirds more than their annual export earnings, and paid back $40 billion to the rich world and received $34 billion in aid.