Hans Rosling, professor of global health at Sweden’s Karolinska University made a rather dramatic presentation at TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) in February 2006. I always appreciate good speakers (and writers), and his ability to make these kinds of statistics both entertaining and relevant is truly amazing. This video is a little long (20 minutes) but worth every minute. He quickly shows you why everything you thought you knew about the third world, health and poverty are wrong. There are a few things I could possibly take issue with, but think about the following while you watch and I think you will see why I enjoyed this presentation beyond his wonderful humor.
- While he is talking about global health, it becomes increasingly clear that the problems are local. There may well be a number of things that “we” in the Western World can do to help, but global initiatives which look at the Third World as a whole likely will not be useful. Even regional data is not detailed enough to formulate policy.
- The gap between rich and poor? That really surprised me. The whole concept of developing countries and the traditional idea of aid is questioned. Watching the graph as the years progress really fascinated me. It put a new facet to my view of wealth. All of these countries are closing in on us, something that we hear continually lamented by President Bush. After all, this is a graphic depiction of the global economy we are worried about competing in. But what happens to US wealth as the other countries close in?
- There is a catalyst in the upswing of many of these nations: loosening of trade regulations and a general freeing of the economy.
So basically, he very graphically presents my view of wealth: wealth generated by the free market generates wealth and problems need to be addressed at the local level rather than globally. Enjoy!
Principled Discovery is a place to stop and discuss news and information related to faith, family and particularly education. Pour yourself a cup of tea and join the conversation! 
Dana,
Thanks for sharing this. I would have loved it if this guy had exploded Haiti the way he did Niger. The child mortality rate that I hear all the time in talking about Haiti is 50% of children die before 5 years old. His statistics were much better. Personal observations are that there is a huge discrepancy between the very rich and the destitute… with no real middle class.
Very interesting. Funny guy too… it takes a very special speaker to make statistics fun to listen too ~
That would be interesting…he is talking about publicly funded data that is more readily available. Maybe you’ll get your info on Haiti, yet?
And I think anyone who starts out by statistically demonstrating that some of the top professors in the world know about as much about the world as a chimpanzee has made a good start with the audience!
Actually, I went to their website and played with the data. It is way cool… But when I looked at Haiti’s GNP, I couldn’t separate out the very rich from the very poor and look at the differences within Haiti.
Thanks for sharing.
That’s too bad. I guess the little countries get neglected? I don’t know…there are a lot of little countries. Or does that mean that Haiti itself isn’t really keeping track? I didn’t look into where the information was coming from, but when he mentioned UN statistics, I assumed it was the numbers the countries themselves reported annually.
You were right. This video did not disappoint. The technology is amazing and the statistics really put things into perspective. Someone recently mentioned to me that there is no longer a middle class. He might be right because from these statistics the middle class seems to be transforming into the first class.
It is exciting to think about these figures in terms of what God is doing in the world. The use of internet surprised me. It might be the way God spreads truth to the final generations.
I couldn’t help but think how much of our policy is influenced by the myths he was trying to dispel.
But with all the talk I hear about the global economy and how America is losing its edge, one thing stood out to me. Here we see very visually how the world is catching up. But nowhere do we slip. Even as so many of our products are made overseas, America’s wealth stays pretty stagnant at the top.
I was encouraged by his statistical study too- but it seems counter-intuitive to say we aren’t slipping in favor of India & China when so many of our real jobs have gone there.
I think he’s right that we need more open statistic data from the publicly funded sources.
Susan
The statistics show that China, et al are indeed catching up, but that we are staying the same. It seems that is a worthy goal…to increase the prosperity of the world. It would be nice to have an age where the concept of the third world has nothing to do with abject poverty.
Many of our manufacturing jobs have gone overseas, but at the same time our economy has changed rapidly to a service oriented economy (which cannot be shipped out very well) and now to an information based economy.
We are losing some types of jobs, but employers are still having a hard time finding qualified employees. to fill positions.