Don't Panic - How to End Poverty in 15 Years This World

A war that seems to have no end.

An enemy that feels unbeatable.

Extreme poverty.

-BUSH:

-'More than half the people of the world are living in conditions

'approaching misery.'

We've had endless campaigning...

-MANDELA:

-'They're trapped in the prison of poverty.'

..a tidal wave of appalling images.

-MICHAEL BUERK:

-'This place is the closest thing to hell on Earth.'

..decades of aid.

REPORT ON POVERTY IN FRENCH

But such poverty still seems an inevitable condition.

"We have not, we'll always be that way," so many believe.

This world, for them, never to be in an arena of opportunity,

but only ever a place of misery.

I think that that view of our world is wrong.

My name is Hans Rosling. I'm a scientist.

I deal in facts not rhetoric.

But just which one of those two are at the heart of this?

This September, 2015,

almost all the leaders of the 193 member states,

are flying to the United Nations in New York

to sign up for this document.

And, inside, it's nothing less than United Nations' goal

for the world for the next 15 years.

And on top of the list, Goal number 1.1 and I read directly,

"By 2030, eradicate extreme poverty for all people everywhere."

"For all people"? "Everywhere"? "Eradicate"?

In just 15 years? But...

Each of these dots that you can now see on our planet,

they represent ten million people.

That's more than the population of New York City.

And so many dots with ten million each

and all live in extreme poverty.

Have the United Nations gone mad?

Or are they just mouthing empty words?

Or maybe in just 15 years from now,

we'll be holding the greatest goal celebration ever.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

I think we'll start with a little quiz.

I'm going to ask you three questions about the world,

because I want to know about how much you know about poverty

and how much you understand of the size of the challenge that is ahead.

So, let's now go for the first question.

How many people out of ten in the world as a whole,

have electricity at home?

Is it one out of ten? That's 10%.

Is it two, three, four, five? Five means 50%, half of them.

Or is it six, seven, eight, nine?

I'll give you one little hint, it's not ten.

It's not everyone.

So, out of the others, please answer.

You see, basic infrastructure, like electricity,

is so important in ending extreme poverty.

OK. So, we can move onto the next question.

And that question is about health service. Look.

How many children out of ten in the world as a whole,

have got vaccinated against measles?

Measles is a deadly disease for malnourished children,

but many in the rich countries don't know that.

Thank you very much. My third question is about education.

In the world as a whole,

how many girls out of ten go to primary school?

That is girl in that age group. Please answer.

Research convincingly shows that education is crucial to end

extreme poverty, especially for girls.

Here we have all of you. Thank you very much.

So, what did you answer? And what were the right answers?

For that, I'm sorry, you will have to wait.

But I hope that this quiz got you thinking.

What do we mean when we talk about poverty?

Because it seems everyone has their own idea.

When we're at home, nobody knows that we're poor.

We're poor. We don't know if we can go to university.

-TRANSLATION:

-'We're so poor. We became homeless.'

"I'm so poor now. I'm living on cornflakes," says Craig.

We are poor, but we're not poor what we were ten years ago.

I'm poor. I'm the breadline.

It's tricky, isn't it? People are poor in so many ways.

But look at this.

This is... I call it my yardstick of income.

The poorest people in the world,

they live down here

on one dollar a day, more or less.

If you go to the middle, we find incomes of about ten dollars a day.

Everyone in the world lives somewhere on this line.

And I, I'm a professor in a relatively rich country,

so my income is up on this nice end of the line, you know.

People like me, they earn about a 100 dollars a day.

And some earn even more because there is no end of this line.

It just continues like this.

Now, I come from beautiful Sweden

and this bubble can represent the ten million people in Sweden.

So, the question is, where is Sweden on this income line?

I will drop it down and show you.

This is the average income in Sweden.

But everyone doesn't have the same income.

Some people earn less and some earn more.

And the richest of Sweden, you know, they love to have really

big boats and they drink very costly wines and they want to

have their own horse to ride.

But we also have poverty in Sweden and like other countries,

we also have a poverty line.

Now, to find that poverty line, what we do, is that we first look

up the middle income, where half the people are that way and half,

the less fortunate are that way.

And then the poverty line is set here.

A little less than half of the mid-income.

Now, living in this end in Sweden is tough.

People here can't fully participate in the Swedish society.

And yet, we call this line "relative poverty".

And the reason for that is that the line moves.

When the mid income goes up in Sweden,

then the relative poverty follows.

It really measures inequality.

Now, I'm going to show you a completely different type of poverty,

which is down here.

Just a little more than one dollar. It's called "extreme poverty".

The exact position depends on the value of the dollar.

But the meaning here is clear and this doesn't change.

This is about the daily struggle to get enough to eat.

It's about survival and you can't live further down there,

because then, you die.

Now, let me show you Malawi.

Malawi is a country, one of the poorest in the world,

which has about the same size of the population as Sweden.

It's in south-east Africa.

And now, I take down Malawi on this income line.

This is the average income of Malawi and when I spread it out,

it's like this.

What a difference!

All most everyone in Malawi has less income than the poorest in Sweden.

And, you know, I love Malawi.

It's a peaceful, beautiful country with hard-working, very kind people.

Its nickname is the Warm Heart of Africa.

But yet, most people in Malawi live here in extreme poverty.

What does that mean for them day to day?

This is the village of Ntchena Chena in the remote corner of the north.

It's home to Dunster, Janet and their children.

It's 5am. Janet is preparing breakfast.

The couple have 11 children.

The younger ones, four girls and three boys, still live at home.

Near Dunster and Janet's house, is their small field of maize.

They're entirely dependent on it for their daily food.

Very soon, it'll be the time for the harvest.

The lynchpin of the family economy.

If the harvest is good, they may even have enough to sell a little.

But most years, like for so many other poor farmers the world over,

there will be a time when the food runs out.

They call it the "hunger season".

The children go to school half an hour's walk away.

Primary education is free in Malawi.

But Janet and Dunster struggle to pay for school uniforms and books.

We're going to march, starting left, left, right.

Left, right, left, right, left right, left, right, left, right.

Stand right.

There are no school meals here, so no food till home time.

We are happy. Read it.

-CHILDREN:

-We are happy.

Thank you very much. We are happy today.

There are few jobs in the area and barely an economy to speak of.

But Dunster and Janet keep grafting to raise whatever cash

they can for their family.

Dunster turns old bits of tin into pots

and watering cans to sell to his neighbours.

Then the cash he earns is invested in a venture of Janet's.

So, today, the couple trek an hour and a half to the nearest shop.

They're after oil and flour.

With these provisions, Janet makes 100 doughnuts.

She's the doughnut queen in her area.

If she sells the entire batch, she will net enough profit to

feed her family for three days during the hunger season.

But her customers are too poor for her business

to be anything other than occasion.

At home, there's no running water or electrical supply.

But Dunster makes the most of what he has.

Once a week, Janet has to spread fresh mud on the floor

and walls to keep their house from falling apart.

But Dunster is determined to change that.

He's building a new home with strong fired bricks he's made himself.

Here, bedroom. Here, dining room.

And bedroom.

Bedroom. Sitting room.

Then stores and then bedroom.

It's taken Dunster two years to get this far.

It will take him at least four years more to finish and even then,

only if he can somehow earn the money for timber

and iron sheets for the roof and cement for the floor.

Dunster and Janet face such a struggle to get anywhere,

but in spite of their problems, they really try to

build their future brick by brick.

Now, how does their life compare to with those who are rich?

Welcome to Dollar Street.

Imagine that all homes of the world lined up on one street, with

those with lowest income on this side

and then people with nicer and higher income all the way up here.

My wife and I, we live somewhere here.

This is our house.

A cosy little redwood house that we Swedes love.

And this is our living room.

This is our kitchen and here is our bathroom. Quite nice, eh?

It's so far to walk down this Dollar Street all the way down here

to Janet and Dunster, who's there, in the other far end.

This is their house.

This is their sofa and their living room.

This is their kitchen and this is their bathroom.

I can really understand that they want to build a new house.

At the Gapminder Foundation where I work,

my colleagues are building Dollar Street to show

the difference in living situations across the world.

We're recording more than 100 different things in each home

and we've been to almost 200 homes in more than 30 countries,

from the poorest to the richest and the many in between.

Let's use that to go and visit Dunster and Janet's neighbours.

Now, neighbours that live in different parts of the world,

but all on the same very modest income.

Here are the Kabura family, farmers in Burundi.

And this is the Chowdhury family in India.

They're in west Bengal working picking coconuts.

And here is Antonios family in Zimbabwe.

And this is the Geenkais, farmers in Papua New Guinea.

Now, these are their homes.

They're all built by non-durable material.

These are fragile walls.

The roofs are made of grass or leaves.

Now, many Swedes, they love to go on holidays to eco lodges.

And these eco lodges are often built to look like these houses.

Because people are sort of rich, they think this is charming.

But don't be fooled.

All these families would love to have a new house

built of bricks with a tin roof.

Now, look here.

I'm lucky, you know, to have a bedroom

that I only share with my wife.

Here, people sleep on the floor, the floor, the floor, the floor.

And the whole family sleeps together in the same room.

And we asked these families, "What was their dream to buy next?"

The Kaburas, they said, "We dream to buy a bed."

And the Antonios, they said, "Oh, we hope to buy a blanket."

This is what it's like when you have just enough to survive.

Very difficult to buy much to make life more healthy,

productive or comfortable.

These Dollar Street neighbours live in different countries

with different cultures.

But they all have the same basic needs.

And they completely lack almost all the same basic things.

In such poverty, small things become so significant.

At the poorest end of Dollar Street, only a few,

like the Antonios from Zimbabwe,

have enough cash to splash out on a real toothbrush,

which everyone in the family now eagerly shares.

So, know we've got a glimpse on how life is in extreme poverty.

I hope you all agree on the importance

of United Nations' Goal 1.1.

But is that goal just a dream?

Or is it any possibility to achieve it?

Bring on my giant poverty tracker!

We need to know how big the problem is.

We need to know if it's getting worse or if it's getting better?

Time to look at data.

I'm going to build a graph for you with my bare hands.

We Swedes are quite good at self-assembly furniture, huh?

This shows the percent in extreme poverty in the world.

0%.

50%.

And 100%.

And each up rise here represents ten years.

Here we are at 1900,

and this is where we are today.

Now, I'm going to start all the way back 200 years ago.

The time of Napoleon.

1800.

What was the percentage of extreme poverty in the world, then?

Staggering.

85%.

Only a few were out of extreme poverty.

And then came the Industrial Revolution.

And did it improve? Not much.

1850, it was just down here to 80%.

And 1900, it came down to 70%.

And then, further on to 1950.

This is when I was born, just before.

I was two years old here.

55%.

And we have to go all the way to 1970 to reach 50%.

The year when half the world population

was out of extreme poverty,

and half were still in extreme poverty.

And then only in my adult life has it started to drop a little faster.

I stop here at 1990, when it was down to 35%.

Now, this year is not the first time the United Nations put a target,

a goal, for extreme poverty.

The former goal was to halve the extreme poverty from 1990

up to 2015, where we are now.

Many people at that time said,

"That's mad, that it will never work."

So, it's very exciting for you now to learn,

where is the last estimate?

Where is 2015?

And the estimate is...

I have to put a special stick here.

It's here.

2015.

This is where we are now.

And the estimate is 12.

12.

Let me show you this fantastic trend here.

How it went down from...

..85%, coming slowly down,

a little faster down, and then down here.

Was the goal achieved?

Well, it's not easy to measure extreme poverty.

There is an uncertainty,

but there is no doubt that this trend is fast going down,

and that the last goal was indeed achieved.

However, I'm a statistician,

and I know that, just because you see a trend like that,

that doesn't mean that it will continue in the same direction.

It may level off like this because the last lap is often the toughest.

But, on the other hand,

you can see that it's not impossible to achieve this new goal.

To end extreme poverty altogether by 2030.

It's quite an amazing change we have seen,

and I want to show you this one more time.

But then, I will use my fancy digital display here.

Look here.

This now is the poverty rate in the world, in percent.

And I start again at 1800.

Now, enjoy this amazing journey.

So, everything is fine?

This amazing fall in poverty?

No, there's a catch.

I know that some of you have already spotted it.

This shows percent of people in poverty.

It doesn't show number of people.

Because, during this period, the world population has increased.

So, I'm going to change this axis.

I take it away,

and I replace it with number of people, in billions.

And, back in 1800,

the world population was just one billion people.

And then this happened with the world population,

it started to increase

and then it came up to two billion, three billion, up, up, up, up.

Up to seven billion and a little beyond.

So, what does that mean for these percentages in poverty we have?

Well, back then in 1800,

85% of one billion, that's more or less one billion.

But here, in 1970,

when we had 50% in poverty and four billion people.

How many were then the number in poverty?

Look at that trend.

It was 50% of four.

That's two billion.

Never in human history

had there been so many hungry people in the world as 1970.

Because the population was growing faster

than the poverty rate was going down.

So, where are we today?

With more than seven billion people and 12% in extreme poverty.

Well, you can use your calculator if you want.

This is what has happened.

12% of seven is more or less one billion.

This makes me very humble.

It means that the one billion we have today in extreme poverty

is more or less the same as we had 200 years ago.

That means that the number of people in extreme poverty

over this long historic time has not decreased,

but from here on we have this strong trend

when both percentage and number is coming down.

So, to me, this indicates that it is indeed possible

to continue down to zero.

Now, you are lucky tonight,

I will spoil you because I am going to show you this in one more way.

Look here.

I'm going to show you

where extreme poverty has been and how it has decreased.

This is the world, and here are the population

back in 1800, in each of the regions, in total one billion.

Here is the yard stick of income.

I'm going to put down these people to show their incomes.

First, Europe, and they spread out here.

And then Americas on top of that.

Then comes Africa, and on top of it the most populous region Asia,

including Australia.

And, as I've shown you before,

almost all people there were living in extreme poverty.

On all regions in the world.

Now, I'm going to show you what has happened.

I start the world and look, with Industrial Revolution

the population grew here

and the incomes expanded here,

mainly because of increased income

in Europe and America.

And then, in the 20th century,

the population continued to grow

and incomes increased even more.

And they changed

the whole pattern of the world.

It became a divided world.

The world view you grew up with,

with the rich West here,

and with poor Africa and Asia here.

But in the 1980s,

the amazing growth of China

and the other tiger economy in Asia and India,

they start to get out of poverty. They close this gap

and they are coming over this side.

The shape of the world changed again.

Look, now, Africa is following -

I call them the lion economies of Africa.

Here we are today, in a completely new shape of the world.

For those of you who still think about the world

as the rich and the poor,

I'm going to give you a new concept.

I'm going to give you a new term.

"The middle".

What we have to do is to look at those who recently came

from extreme poverty and into the middle,

to learn what it takes to go from here to there.

Welcome to Cambodia,

one of Asia's poorest countries.

And to Thy, who farms a smallholding in a village

in the centre of the country.

THEY SPEAK IN KHMER

Thy and his wife live with her dad

and their three-year-old son.

The family is about to get bigger.

Thy's wife is heavily pregnant.

In fact, the local midwife told her she's expecting twins.

The family's living conditions are far from easy,

but, unlike Malawi, there is no hunger season here.

They have electricity.

Though no gas for cooking.

And though life's hard,

there's time and money for her to pursue her hobby.

Though still poor,

the family have earned enough to buy some life-changing things.

Last year, Thy managed to invest the equivalent of 300 dollars

in a new water pump,

so he no longer had to waste time at the public pump.

Things are changing fast in Cambodia today.

Just two hours away,

the capital Phnom Penh is at the heart of an economic boom.

New export industries - above all, textiles -

are yielding very fast economic growth.

And this transformation is reaching well into the countryside.

With textile factories opening up nearby,

many neighbours have began to prosper,

moving away from agriculture into full-time employment.

Thy is turning this to his advantage.

Though Thy's farmland is similar in size to Dunster's in Malawi,

what he's able to do with it couldn't be more different.

Unlike Dunster, Thy can even afford to invest

in what he needs to make his work more efficient.

The couple are out of extreme poverty, but not far out,

and they've had unexpected and troubling news.

Unexpected medical costs often cause serious financial shocks

for people just out of extreme poverty.

With a possible Caesarean and many days in hospital to pay for,

the family have had to borrow the equivalent of almost 500 dollars.

All the family's assets - the pump,

the bike, and even their land,

might be in jeopardy, depending on what happens next.

Such a big dent might even throw them right back

into extreme poverty.

Worrying times for Thy and his wife.

A risky pregnancy, and a risk to be thrown back into extreme poverty

if things go wrong.

Let's head back to Dollar Street.

The place where they live, you know, is not at the far poorest end,

they are new arrivals to this big middle,

where most of the people live.

So, let's visit some of their neighbours,

all having the same income,

out of extreme poverty, but not much more.

It's the Castillos from the slum in Manila in the Philippines.

It is Iquira Collos from Columbia.

And it is the Nshimyimanas from Rwanda.

And also the Bishash family from Bangladesh.

These are their houses.

They are still poor,

but there's a distinct difference between these houses

and those in extreme poverty.

They're of more durable material, there's bricks there

and there's a roof with plastic and there's iron sheets.

And this, you can see inside their home

they have more things for a better life,

a more healthy life, a more productive life.

They have clean water in their house.

They have bicycles and a little cart

so that they can transport and carry things.

Better beds with mattresses.

And things to keep them informed and even entertain them in their homes.

And, most importantly, they all have electricity,

electricity, electricity, electricity.

Now, it if you live in this richer end of Dollar Street,

it is very easy to look down at people in the rest of the world,

in the middle and the rest and say they are all equally poor.

But, if you look carefully, you will see a completely different story.

All across the middle, progress today is steady and very real.

Step by step, lives are getting better.

And in so many ways.

Not just more stuff in people's homes

but more opportunities for a fuller life.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the moment you have been waiting for.

Time for the answers on the World Quiz.

APPLAUSE

Are you confident now? You will see how you have answered.

Well, remember the first question. Here it is.

These were your answers.

Ah, very much spread out.

But it seems that most was like four, 40%.

Let's look at the right answer.

It's eight.

Little more than 80%. 40%, that was 1960.

You are 50 years behind on average.

Next question.

These are your results.

Once again, spread out

and it seems that the most common answer here was 30% of children.

The right answer is...

..83% of the children of the world are vaccinated against measles.

Now, let's look at the last one.

Your answer was like this.

Ah-ha! And once more it was like you think 40% of the girls.

The right answer is...

90% of girls go to school.

Your answer is 60 years behind.

Don't look too sad, you know?

I put these type of questions to many audiences

across the world and they are as out-dated as you are.

You know, it's absolutely amazing how much life is improving

for most people in the world, not only economically,

but in so many different ways.

I think this is the greatest story of our time.

Or almost the greatest story of human history.

And if you don't believe me, look at this.

Here's my yard stick of income but I'm going to change it

because I'm going to compare countries.

So, I changed this one to GDP per capita.

It's a fancy term for the income of countries.

And it goes from 500 dollars per person,

5,000 dollars per person, up to 50,000 dollars per person a year.

But money's nice but it's not the most important.

We need a measure of human progress, also.

And from my huge database, I think it's easy to choose.

What I think is the best measure of human progress

is to look at the fall of child mortality.

Child mortality is the number of children that tragically die

before the age of five.

From 50% to 10%.

Of course, we want it to go as close to zero as possible.

Now, child mortality depends on so many things, not just health service.

It depends on education, living conditions, how communities

and governments protect and help those in need.

So, child mortality measures all those aspects of human progress.

So, let's now start in 1800.

And here comes all the countries.

First, Europe, each bubble is a country. Then Americas.

And here, Africa.

And now Asia.

The size of these bubbles correspond to population,

so the big ones up there is China and India.

Now, in 1800, there was an appalling high child mortality in the world.

Even the most powerful country at that time, the UK,

had more than one child in three dying before the age of five.

Now, let's see what happens.

Let's see how countries got more money

and how well they used that money.

I start now the world. Here we go.

The richest countries improved their economy and, with better hygiene,

food and education, they lower child mortality.

Then comes smallpox vaccination, industrially produced soap.

It went down further and then, with further economic growth,

they could improve living conditions and even start with social welfare.

Now, ooh, that was the First World War.

And after that the poorest countries start to move downwards here,

slowly, slowly and that is the Second World War.

Now, after that independence came to countries in Asia and Africa

and, with that, more families got education, better water,

sanitation, health service with new vaccines.

And they got better seeds and, with roads, rural life improves.

And here... Oh, that was the break down

of the Soviet Union you saw there.

And now all the girls, almost, in the world get education

and women get more empowered and that presses down child mortality

and increase economic growth.

Here we are today. What an amazing change.

Even the worst-off countries today have a lower child mortality

than that of the best 200 years ago.

But there is still huge difference between the countries.

So, I zoom in to show you that.

And, look, the worst off, poorest, war-torn African countries

are up there but peaceful Malawi is down here.

Now, these countries in the middle,

they've had an amazing progress and Cambodia has reached already here.

But remember Thy and his wife?

They face the challenge of her twin delivery

and they also risk an economic shock from the medical bill.

So, how this young family now fares will be a test for their country

and for the world at large.

She has gone into labour

and the couple waste no time in heading for the district hospital.

Because one of the twins is upside down,

the local health centre won't take her.

Thy doesn't trust his own unreliable bike,

so they've had to hire an expensive motorbike taxi.

It's an hour's journey, almost four days' earnings

but at least there's a hospital to go to.

At the end of the '70s,

Cambodia was emerging from the mass murder of Khmer Rouge

and there were very few surviving doctors but, since then,

more than 1,000 health centres and hospitals have been opened.

It's 1am. Suddenly, Thy's wife is in full labour.

The first twin is delivered naturally and the medical team

is also able, very skilfully, to turn the second baby.

There is no need to operate.

She has given birth to two healthy boys.

Although an expensive Caesarean is avoided,

the family still face a costly hospital bill.

But there's one chance for Thy to avoid the costs

and pay back their debt.

A government scheme known as the Poor Card picks up

the medical bills and expenses for poorer Cambodians.

But, to see if they qualify, Thy will first have some tough questioning.

The questions are designed to assess just how poor the family really is.

More than 19 points

and they will have to pick up all their health-care bills themselves.

To make sure the system isn't abused, inspectors will go

to Thy's house and check that he's telling the truth.

They score 17 points and just qualify for the Poor Card.

They won't need to pay the hospital and, what's more,

they'll get a daily allowance towards food and travel.

When it's time to leave hospital, the Poor Card also covers

the costs for the tuk-tuk ride home.

One in ten Cambodians do still live in extreme poverty

but this family won't be joining them.

They've been able to repay the money they borrow.

And with this Poor Card,

they will all have free health care for at least the next five years,

from Grandpa to the new twins, they are all listed.

This basic welfare system has ensured that this happy event

is not a financial catastrophe.

The family will stay part of Cambodia's growing economy.

Welcome to the world, Chantheoun and Chantha.

But what's the lesson from Cambodia for the poorest countries?

When these countries here in the middle develop so successfully,

they both invested in human progress and grew their economy.

But which came first?

Chicken or egg? People or money?

Let's look at the UK.

In 1800, UK was here,

and now, we run 200-year story.

First, UK got wealthier,

and then went a little healthier,

and then more wealth and health.

Now, I'm going to compare that

with the mightiest of the emerging countries - China.

When they came out from the Communist Revolution in 1950,

they had more or less the same child mortality as the United Kingdom

had 150 years earlier.

And then, during Chairman Mao, there was both progress and horror.

But then, they continued downwards with social progress

and that kick-started this amazing economic growth

that we have seen in China.

Now, China reached the same low level of child mortality

as UK had here, at the tenth of the economic level.

But they did it with Communism.

Let's go to a neighbouring country, South Korea,

with a different political system.

This is still the year of the Korean War.

But after the war, Korea invested

heavily in education and health

and improved human development

and then came this amazing economic growth

that was even faster than China's.

You see, this is the route that many countries in the world

who are successful today are following. It's a smart short cut,

where they first invest with very limited economic resources

in human progress and then,

they take off economically and go that way.

Now, even in Africa, let me show you Ethiopia.

1950 up here, first decades

of turmoil and even famine,

and then from 1990 here, they take off

with investments in human and now economic growth.

So, what about poor Malawi? It has come down like this.

Really successful in education and in health,

and they have come down here, much better now than generations ago,

but they are still waiting for the economic growth.

In Malawi, harvest time has arrived.

All the family get to work.

But Dunster does not have high hopes.

The rains are often irregular in this part of Malawi,

and this year, they came at the wrong time.

Even so, it's only now that the cobs are all taken off,

that he can really tell how this year's harvest has done.

With the harvest complete, Dunster, at last, can definitively measure

how much food the family has and how long it will last.

It wouldn't really take much to make poor farmers,

like Dunster and Janet, far more productive,

enough to lift them out of extreme poverty all together.

So often, what's lacking is something straightforward.

There's no shortage of water in the area.

The problem is reliably getting it

to the right place at the right time.

A few miles away, on the far side of the village,

there is a small irrigation system

that diverts water from local streams.

The farmers over there grow better maize as well as other crops.

They've been able to turn their farms into real businesses.

Near Dunster's house is a place

where he believes a dam could create a stream-water reservoir

for his side of the village.

Small irrigation systems aren't too difficult to build,

but they still need funding and agreement on management -

both hard to come by.

That's why Dunster is still at the mercy of the rains.

What Dunster hopes for is not wildly unrealistic,

but he'll need it to fulfil his dream.

What a paradoxical situation.

Janet and Dunster work so hard and get so little.

What they need is a small dam.

But who's going to pay for things like that?

Commercial investments? Not likely for poor people in remote areas.

Governments? The poorest countries are still too poor.

So, let me tell you about the third main alternative.

International aid.

Here once more we show economic level and social progress.

And we zoom in as we have seen before.

And the richer countries, or those here in the middle, this group here.

They still have some people remaining in extreme poverty,

and they get about 300 in aid

per person in extreme poverty.

But I think they are rich enough to take care of their own poor people.

In fact, some of these countries, China and Mexico,

they are already generously GIVING aid to these ones.

Why should they also get it?

I think it's time to stop giving aid to these countries.

Now, the next group here, who is the lower part of the middle group.

Quite a sizable part of their population still in extreme poverty.

They still get aid, also around 300

per person in extreme poverty and they need aid.

You saw, in Cambodia, how that Poverty Card

really helped people from not falling back into extreme poverty.

Now, the strange thing is here,

the countries with the lowest income.

They have the highest percentage

of people in extreme poverty,

but they only get 100 in aid per person in extreme poverty.

The aid has to be much better focused,

and it especially has to focus

on the remotest areas, the remote corners of these countries,

because that's where extreme poverty is.

And yes, the governments in these countries

also have to dramatically improve the way they provide services.

But it's here the endgame will be against extreme poverty.

Ending extreme poverty will transform the lives

of a billion people.

But this is not about charity, it is an investment in all of us.

Extreme poverty helps fuel many dangerous long-running conflicts,

ending it will bring peace.

And what's more, wherever extreme poverty's ended,

the poor of today will become the customers of tomorrow.

And, I'm sure, the inventors and the entrepreneurs of tomorrow, too.

There is one last thing I must tell you.

One reason why it's not only important

to end extreme poverty, but it's also urgent.

Population growth.

Here are all the people again

and I want to tell you about one profound effect

of this big move out of extreme poverty.

It's about the size of families,

number of babies born per woman.

Here, in extreme poverty,

still today, there's on average,

five children in the family.

Five babies born per woman.

Whereas those who are out of extreme poverty,

the vast majority of the world,

here the average today

is two children in each family.

Independent of culture and religion.

And what does this mean for Goal 1.1?

Well, it means that if only a part of these people

get out of extreme poverty,

those who remain will continue to have large families

and poverty will reproduce itself.

Now, it's very important that you don't misunderstand.

I don't say that you end extreme poverty

by telling these people to have fewer children.

No, it's the other way round.

If you help these people get out of extreme poverty,

they will very soon, swiftly decide to have fewer children

if they have access to contraceptives.

It's the remarkable fact, you know,

that explains why it is easier to end extreme poverty swiftly

than to do it slowly.

It will be easiest of all to end extreme poverty

in less than one generation.

You know, I wondered in the beginning

if the United Nations were mad

when they suggested that we should end extreme poverty in 15 years.

In fact, it would be mad not to do it.

I hope I've shown you that the right actions

together with economic growth and targeted aid

can end extreme poverty.

We really can end that terrible poverty

around the world that has been with humanity throughout history.

We have seen so many being lifted out of extreme poverty...

..and now, we can continue that and get the job done.

Ending extreme poverty won't end the problems of the world.

But, in comparison with other huge problems,

like climate change and war,

this one, to me, seems easy.

So, Goal 1.1, let's do it.

APPLAUSE

To test your own assumptions about world poverty

and explore the issues behind the numbers, go to...

..where you will find links

to the Open University's free learning website Open Learn.

You'll also find links to Gapminder

where you can explore all the data and its sources.