Bahá’í World/Volume 33/Statistics
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Statistics
General Statistics
More than 5.5 million people are members of the Bahá'í Faith. As
of Ridván 2004, the Bahá'í community has 183 National Spiritual
Assemblies and thousands of Local Spiritual Assemblies around the
world. The Bahá'í 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
worldwide Bahá'í community.
Social and Economic Development
Bahá'í development activities are initiated either by individuals or
groups of believers or by Bahá'í administrative institutions. Together,
these activities contribute to a global process of learning about a
Bahá'í approach to social and economic development. They pres-
ently fall into three general categories.
ACTIVITIES OF FIXED DURATION
Most Bahá'í social and economic development efforts are fairly
simple activities of fixed duration in which Bahá'ís around the world
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THE BAHÁ'Í WORLD 2004-2005
address the problems and challenges faced by their localities through
the application of spiritual principles. These activities either originate
in the Bahá'í 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 of various 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 Bahá'í 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 Bahá'í 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 of lines 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.