Best Things First

Most of the world’s 28 low-income countries are in Africa, along with war-torn Syria and Yemen and the broken state of North Korea. In total, they are home to around 700 million people. The 54 nations that qualify as lower-middle income have a combined population of 3.4 billion, of which more than a third lives in India. Together, these two groups

This leads them to plant ‘safe’ crops, which consistently produce some food but — on average — far less

it also allows many students to share the tablet over the day,

They set out targets that almost everyone in the world would agree are priorities: To reduce poverty and hunger,

Saving 4.2 million lives in 2024 is equivalent to stopping one 747 jumbo jet full of passengers from crashing once an hour of every day for the entire year.

means an 11% boost to their economies each year.

The full package, which` includes a 30% increase in private sector investments in developing countries, would cost $74 billion over the 35-year period. That is equivalent to an annual increase of $5.5 billion. But this investment would generate $2,450 billion in benefits — a spectacular $33 return for each dollar invested. Per year, it would be equ

The so-called Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were created just by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and a close circle of aides with little public deliberation or government participation. Annan and his staff worked behind closed doors with technocrats at the International Monetary Fund, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development,

Across all low- and lower-middle-income countries, these deaths amount to a loss of almost half a trillion dollars each year or 6% of their GDPs.