Look in any city or corner of the world and you will find poverty. But the problems we face in the United States, Europe and Japan simply don't compare to those in Africa. Seventy percent of Sub-Saharan Africans live on less than $2 a day. 200 million go hungry every day. This year alone at least a million Africans, most of them young children, will die of malaria and two million will die of AIDS.

Africa is struggling under a triple crisis that keeps its people poor and its nations weak - the burden of unpayable debt that soaks up money that should be spent building schools and hospitals; the epidemic of AIDS that is taking the lives of an entire generation; and the unfair trade policies that keep Africans from earning their own way out of poverty.

Even in the midst of these crises, we have seen glimpses of a new Africa. Because of debt cancellation, this year 20 million children are going to school for the first time in their lives. In the last three years, programs like the Global Fund and America's emergency AIDS plan are providing life-saving AIDS drugs to 1.3 million people around the world, most of them in Africa. Across the continent, African churches, community groups and media outlets are acting as the detergent against corruption and holding their governments to account for their decisions and spending.

Aid is working in the poorest parts of the world. But we are far from an end to extreme poverty and there is evidence to suggest that rich countries are wavering in their willingness to respond to the moral crisis of our time. DATA exists to hold leaders to their promises and to push them to go further - because we believe that helping Africa is not only the right thing to do, it's the smart thing to do in an increasingly unstable world.

DATA argues that helping Africans help themselves is essential to our economic and national security interests. However, at the core of DATA's beliefs is a view that these issues are not about charity, but about equality and justice. For the first time in human history, we have the science, the technology and the money to end extreme poverty. With this unprecedented historic opportunity comes the responsibility to act.

Fighting poverty is also important for our security. Increasing aid could save millions of lives and could change the way wealthy nations are viewed by the rest of the world. The West needs to meet the rest of the world outside of the military and commerce and aid is a way we can do that. It is madness for us to fight the war on terror with tanks and guns when we could fight it with medicine, free schooling and freedom of thought.

Whether and how we help Africa now is a test of our ability to prevent failing states that threaten our security, and even more important, a test of our humanity.

To learn more about debt, AIDS, trade and other issues affecting Africa and what we can do to help, go to Issues and Analysis. To see how aid is effecting the lives of real people in Africa, go to Success Stories and Lessons Learned.