This is a really interesting interview with Max Roser, founder and editor of Our World in Data. Recommend.
The idea of development is to make progress against problems. If we go back into our history, humanity has always battled the same problems: kids died early, people remained hungry for much of the year, lived in poor conditions, and lived in unjust and unfair political environments.
And these problems aren’t new – they are as old as our species, and I guess development really means… to make progress against these big problems that we always faced and that we also face today.
And then global development comes from the fact I think that many of the lessons that are learnt in one place can also be applied elsewhere, so that if one place pushes forward against a particular problem then others can follow, and so it has this really global dynamic of moving forward against these problems.
Max Roser on The Torch Of Progress Ep. 4 from Progress Studies for Young Scholars, with Jason Crawford
See also:
- Lant Pritchett on reducing poverty (targeted interventions vs systemic change)
- On Jean Valjean’s carriage, technological progress and interchangeable parts
- Riches: second-best coffee press
- Contextualising best practice: one size does not fit all
- The Chartbook of Economic Inequality