Africa is the Earth's second-largest (about 30,221,532 sq km / 11,668,545 sq mi) and second most populous (about 900 billion people as of 2008W) continent.
Africa straddles the equator and no part of the continent is more than about 4,000 kilometers from it, thus the continent's environments are largely tropical and subtropical, and with a great variation in rainfall and humidity, from tropical rain forests, through scrubland and savanna, to the Sahara and Kalahari deserts.
Both genus HomoW and our own species Homo sapiensW are thought to have originated in Africa, about 2.5 million years ago and 130,000 years ago respectively.
The Challenge
In Sub-Saharan Africa, the number of people living on less than $1 per day has grown from about 231 million to 318 million people. Extreme poverty persists as a major challenge for the world to face. A complex set of factors—lack of access to basic human health services, clean water, education, technology, among many others—weave what has become known as a “vicious poverty trap” preventing millions worldwide from breaking free of the cycle. Leading development experts worldwide have come to identify that vital tool the impoverished need to break out of this cycle: access to credit, capital, and other essential financial services. Thus, was born the concept of Microfinance.
A Solution
If you're interested in helping this beautiful continent and it's inhabitants, there are innovative, empowering, long-term solutions through art, music, and microfinance (learn more at http://www.PromoteAfrica.org ).