Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World—and Why Things Are Better Than You Think

by Hans Rosling

Especially mothers: the data shows that half the increase in child survival in the world happens because the mothers can read and write.

So if you are investing money to improve health on Level 1 or 2, you should put it into primary schools, nurse education, and vaccinations.

The fight against the lethal Ebola virus was won not by an individual heroic leader, or even by one heroic organization like Médecins Sans Frontières or UNICEF. It was won prosaically and undramatically by government staff and local health workers, who created public health campaigns that changed ancient funeral practices in a matter of days; risked their lives to treat dying patients; and did the cumbersome, dangerous, and delicate work of finding and isolating all the people who had been in contact with them.

When a problem seems urgent the first thing to do is not to cry wolf, but to organize the data.

We should be teaching them what life was really like in the past so that they do not mistakenly think that no progress has been made. • We should be teaching them how to hold the two ideas at the same time: that bad things are going on in the world, but that many things are getting better.