Global Engage

Welcome to the Global Engage website, which supports members of the IB community, and particularly teachers, in engaging with our global world.

Here you will find information, resources, ideas and opinions, links, and suggestions for action concerned with global issues - and reports of actions taken by the IB community.

The world's six billion people are appropriating 54 percent of all the accessible freshwater contained in rivers, lakes and underground aquifers.

World Water Assessment Programme

Photodisc/Digital Vision/Thinkstock

Wind power existed in just a handful of countries in the 1990s, but now exists in over 82 countries.
In 2009 investment in wind generated power was the highest on record.

United Nations Environment Programme, 2010

Digital Vision/Thinkstock

Scientists estimate that 150-200 species of plant, insect, bird and mammal become extinct every 24 hours. This is the highest extinction rate since the vanishing of the dinosaurs nearly 65m years ago.

United Nations Environment Programme, 2010

istockphoto.com/ David Gomez

"Business as usual is no longer an option if we are to avoid irreversible damage to the life-support systems of our planet."

Ahmed Djoghlaf, Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity May 2010

istockphoto.com/ luoman

"A bite of fair trade chocolate means a lot to farmers in the South. It opens the doors to development and gives children access to healthcare, education, and a decent standard of living."

K. Ohemeng-Tinyase, Managing Director of Kuapa Kokoo cocoa cooperative, Ghana

iStockphoto/Thinkstock

"Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed"

Mahatma Gandhi

Hemera/Thinkstock

The current financial turndown has meant a slower rate of poverty reduction. In 2009, fewer people left poverty as a result of the crisis.

World Bank 2010

iStockphoto/Thinkstock

We need to push ourselves to make as many reductions as possible in our own energy use first and that takes time. But we must do this quickly. The climate will not wait for us.

Rupert Murdoch Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, News Corporation May 9, 2007

iStockphoto/Thinkstock

About three quarters of monitored marine fish stocks are now fully exploited, overexploited, or depleted.

FAO State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture (SOFIA) 2008 / GreenFacts

iStockphoto/Thinkstock

The population of older people worldwide is growing at more than double the annual rate of the population as a whole.

Population Reference Bureau, 2010

iStockphoto / Ivonne Wierink-vanWetten

Reduce reuse recycle

Rethink resources

istockphoto.com/ jacus

Young people, 15 to 24 years old, accounted for 40% of all new HIV infections among adults in 2008.

World Health Organisation

iStockphoto/Thinkstock

Competition for water exists at all levels and is forecast to increase with demands for water in almost all countries.

UN World Water Development Report 3, 2009

"Poverty has been created by the economic and social system that we have designed for the world. It is the institutions that we have built and feel so proud of, which created poverty."

Muhammad Yunus, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, 2006

Over 42 million people have been uprooted by conflict or persecution.

Millennium Development Goals Report 2010

The education budget of a single country like France, Germany, Italy or the United Kingdom outweighs education spending across the entire sub-Saharan African region.

UNESCO 2007