Bahá’í World/Volume 33/Statistics
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Statistics
General Statistics
More than 5.5 million people are members of the Bahé’l’ Faith. As of Rjdvén 2004, the Bahé’l’ community has 183 National Spiritual Assemblies and thousands of Local Spiritual Assemblies around the world. The Bahé’i Faith is established in 191 independent countries and 45 dependent territories or overseas departments. There are 2,112 indigenous tribes, races, and ethnic groups represented within the
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worldwide Bahal communlty.
Social and Economic Development
Bahé’l’ development activities are initiated either by individuals or groups of believers or by Bahai’l’ administrative institutions. Together, these activities contribute to a global process of learning about a Bahai’x’ approach to social and economic development. They pres— ently fall into three general categories.
ACTIVITIES OF FIXED DURATION
Most Bahé’l’ social and economic development efforts are fairly simple activities of fixed duration in which Bahé’l’s around the world
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296 THE BAHA’I’ WORLD 2004—2005
address the problems and challenges faced by their localities through the application of spiritual principles. These activities either originate in the Baha’l’i’ communities themselves or represent responses to invi- tations from other organizations. It is estimated that in 2004—2005 there were several thousand endeavors of this kind, including clean- up projects, health camps and the provision ofvarious other types of services, workshops and seminars on such themes as race unity and the advancement of women, and short—term training courses.
SUSTAINED PROJECTS
The second category of Bahé’l’ social and economic development activities consists of approximately 600 ongoing projects. The vast majority are academic and tutorial schools, While others focus on areas such as literacy, basic health care, moral education, child care, agriculture, the environment, and microenterprise. Some of these projects are administered by nascent development organizations, which have the potential to grow in complexity and in their range of influence.
ORGANIZATIONS WITH CAPACITY TO UNDERTAKE COMPLEX ACTION
Certain Bahé’l’ development efforts have evolved into development organizations with relatively complex programmatic structures and significant spheres of influence. They systematically train human resources and manage a number oflines of action to address problems of local communities and regions in a coordinated, interdisciplinary manner. Also included in this category are several institutions— especially large schools—which, although focusing only on one field, have the potential to make a significant impact. In this category there are currently 45 such organizations.