Bahá’í World/Volume 34/Statistics

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The Bahá’í World Volume 34

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[Page 249]

General Statistics

More than 5 million people are members of the Bahá’í Faith. As of Ridván 2006, the Bahá’í community had 179 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 presently 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 [Page 250]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 invitations from other organizations. It is estimated that in 2005-2006 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 activity 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.