For most of history, probably more than 90 percent of the world population lived in extreme poverty, plunging to fewer than 10 percent today.
Every
day, another 250,000 people graduate from extreme poverty, according to
World Bank figures. About 300,000 get electricity for the first time.
Some 285,000
get their first access to clean drinking water. When I was a boy, a
majority of adults had always been illiterate, but now more than 85
percent can read.....
So
let’s pause from our pessimism for a nanosecond of celebration about a
world that is actually getting better. The most important historical
force in the world today is not President Trump, and it’s not
terrorists. Rather, it’s the stunning gains on our watch against extreme
poverty, illiteracy and disease; it’s all those 12-year-olds out there
who never catch leprosy and instead go to school. Nicholas Kristof, New York Times, July 1, 2017
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