Memorizing these three statistics will help you understand the world
Improvements in conditions for women and the health of children have driven a rapid reduction in fertility rates across the world. In fact, the global fertility rate has halved in the last 50 years, from more than 5 children per woman to fewer than 2.5 children. The world population growth rate has also halved in the last 50 years and is just above 1 percent.
The statistic that I remember on population growth is the one that tells me that rapid population growth is coming to an end in this century. In the last 50 years the global fertility rate has fallen from 5 children per woman to less than 2.5 children per woman. In fifty years the fertility rate has halved.
Fact #3: 137,000 people escaped extreme poverty every day between 1990 and 2015.
Living in poverty means that many of the most essential things in life are out of reach. People in poverty tend to lack decent shelter and basic healthcare, and they often struggle to afford adequate food supplies.
People are considered to live in 'extreme poverty' if they have to get by on less than 1.90 international-dollars per day, which is a currency that corrects for price differences between countries and inflation.
In this definition of poverty, the term extreme poverty is clearly appropriate: this is a very low poverty line.
When you ask people whether the world is making progress against extreme poverty, the majority of us believe things are getting worse—that the number of people in extreme poverty in the world is rising.
The opposite is true. Both the number and the share of people in extreme poverty is falling:
In 1990, 1.86 billion people were living on less than 1.90 international-$ per day—more than every third person in the world. Twenty-five years later, the number of people living in extreme poverty has more than halved to 706 million, every tenth person.
This is a very large transformation. It means that, on average, every day for the past 25 years 137,000 fewer people were living in extreme poverty than the day before. On every day in the last 25 years there could have been a newspaper headline reading, "The number of people in extreme poverty fell by 137,000 since yesterday."
This is the statistic I remember: Today every 10th person is living in extreme poverty—706 million people. An unacceptably large number of people. But we should also know that the trend is moving in the right direction. The number of people in extreme poverty is falling. It is possible to end extreme poverty.
Remembering these facts about the world brings to mind why I think it is important to get engaged in global development. The statistics on the current state of the world make clear that we cannot be complacent about the world as it is today. Especially because progress is uneven, and in sub-Saharan Africa progress has been slower, but is not absent. The statistics on global change over time tell us that it is possible to work for a better world. The number of child deaths is dropping. The challenges of rapid population growth will not continue indefinitely. And the number of people in extreme poverty is falling.
Let's continue in this direction. Our past successes should encourage us to work for more progress.
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