Hans Rosling: The Good News of the Decade

Hans Rosling discusses the good news of the decade in this lecture.  He is a professor of international health and discovered a paralytic disease in Africa.  His lecture began by talking about the United Nations 8 Goals for the progress of countries.  The goal that Rosling focused on was child mortality.  He discussed the statistics of Africa, and the individual countries within.  He brought up how the average mortality rate was measured on a more long term scale, and suggested that the progress be measured in 10 year incremements.  He also discussed how the statistics of progress aren't fair in Africa because for one thing, it is measured as a continent, not as individual countries, which he says are vastly different.  In measuring the progress in 10 year increments, we can also differentiate between different era's and time periods, such as the 1990's when the the AIDS epidemic was peaking, there were obviously a lot of child deaths, so to group the 1990's with a decade after that is making immense progress is not fair, because there are different circumstances.  He then describes how smaller families tend to have less instances of child death.  There is also new research that says 50% of the falling child mortality rate is attributed to female education, as the effects of the education may not show until 15-20 years later, but none the less it comes through.  He mentions at the end of his lecture that the environmental crisis depends on the stabilization of the world population.  This can be achieved by lowering child mortality rate, access to family planning and educating women and girls.  He stresses long term perspective, but measured in 10 year periods.