PERSPECTIVE: 

So, we're going to spend $18.6 billion* on Mother's Day...
                                                      ...how much is that really?

  


More than 2x annual budget for all UN peacekeeping operations, supporting 120,988 personnel deployed on 16 missions across four continents *

More than 8x annual budget for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), responsible for ensuring the welfare of over 33.9 million refugees and displaced persons in 125 countries around the world * 

More than 15x amount of U.S. aid pledged for post-earthquake reconstruction in Haiti *
More than 66x amount of U.S. aid actually delivered *

More than 44x total official campaign funds raised by all candidates so far in the 2012 presidential election*
                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

More than 140x annual federal funding for UNICEF *
More than 5x total UNICEF annual budget *
 

                                 Starting to seem like a lot, right?

   

More than 5x annual budget of the World Food Programme, responsible for feeding more than 90 million people, most of them women and children, in over 70 countries a year * 

More than 9x total cost of NATO military intervention in Libya
More than 16x costs incurred by the U.S. *

More than 2x total clean-up costs (inflation adjusted) for the Exxon Valdez oil spill, one of the most devastating man-made environmental disasters in history *

More than 170x annual federal funding for the World Health Organization (WHO) *
More than 4x total WHO biennial budget (two years) *

More than the entire GDP of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the 19th largest nation in the world, population 73 million * 

More than 87x estimated cost to reduce global measles deaths by 95% by 2015, saving more than 460,000 lives a year, most of them young children *   

More than 248x funds currently available *
     

         How much is $18.6 billion? It's enough to change the world.
                                           Kinda like Mom.