Things have never been this good in human history, Part 3

End of term report from the UN

Fifteen years ago, world leaders agreed to a set of development goals to be achieved by this year – on broad measures like education, poverty, healthcare etc. (The Millennium Development Goals). There’s been massive progress in many areas.

One or two highlights:

• MDG 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger:
• Extreme poverty: In 1990, nearly half of the population in the developing regions lived on less than $1.25 a day. This rate dropped to 14 per cent in 2015. Globally, the number of people living in extreme poverty has declined by more than half, falling from 1.9 billion in 1990 to 836 million in 2015, with most progress occurring since 2000.
• Hunger: The proportion of undernourished people in the developing regions has fallen by almost half since 1990, from 23.3 per cent in 1990–1992 to 12.9 per cent in 2014–2016.
• MDG 4: Reduce child mortality:
• Child mortality rate: Globally, the under-five mortality rate dropped from 90 to 43 deaths per 1,000 live births between 1990 and 2015. Despite population growth in the developing regions, the number of deaths of children under five declined from 12.7 million in 1990 to almost 6 million in 2015 globally.
• Infectious diseases: Measles vaccination helped prevent nearly 15.6 million deaths between 2000 and 2013. The number of globally reported measles cases declined by 67 per cent. About 84 per cent of children worldwide received at least one dose of measles-containing vaccine in 2013, up from 73 per cent in 2000.
• MDG 2: Achieve universal primary education:
• Primary school enrolment: In the developing regions, the primary school net enrolment rate has reached 91 per cent in 2015, up from 83 per cent in 2000.
• Sub-Saharan Africa recorded the best progress in primary education, with a 20 percentage-point increase in the net enrolment ratio from 2000 to 2015, compared to an 8 percentage-point gain between 1990 and 2000.
• Out-of-school children: Globally, the number of out-of-school children of primary school age has fallen to an estimated 57 million in 2015, down from 100 million in 2000.
• Literacy rate: Among youth aged 15 to 24, the literacy rate has improved globally from 83 per cent to 91 per cent between 1990 and 2015, and the gap between women and men has narrowed.

UPDATE 2019 – under five mortality rates globally have more than halved in the last 20 years.

In short, much still needed to be done – but also massive, positive progress.

Source: the UN

Things have never been this good in human history, Part 1

Things have never been this good in human history, Part 2