The cost of the election campaigns of the two US presidential nominees, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, has reached a staggering sum of $1.6bn in the recent year.

This tidy sum of money is equivalent to the daily incomes of 550 million people in Africa.

The global economy is characterized by a wide gap between different countries. In Africa, 550 million are mired in poverty.

In other words, more than half a billion people in that continent make ends meet with a budget less than $1.2 per day.

These individuals cannot meet their least daily needs, and there is no room for medical care in their restricted budgets.

The United Nations has announced that the ongoing global campaign against poverty needs at least $175bn in the next twenty years to cover its expenses; which translates into $8.75bn per annum.

Thus, the cost of US presidential candidates’ election campaigns stands at 16.7% of the annual budget earmarked for uprooting poverty, worldwide.

MR/SS