Really interesting discussion on poverty and how to view global development.
"My experience from twenty years of Africa is that the seemingly impossible is possible. Africa's not done bad. In fifty years they've gone from a pre-medieval situation to a very decent 100-year-ago Europe with a functioning national state. I would say Sub-Saharan Africa has done best in the world in the last fifty years."
He uses an analogy of his neighbor who is familiar with 200 types of wine. Rosling says he only knows two - red and white. But the same neighbor only knows two types of countries - developed and undeveloped - while Rosling says he knows 200.
"We have to know a little bit more about the world," he says.
I would agree that oversimplification is one the major problems of development thinking.
As Rosling says, It's one thing to survive in poverty. It's another thing entirely to get out of it.
I'd go one step further and say, It's one thing for all of us to live in a world that includes poverty - which we've learned how to do quite well. It's another thing to eliminate poverty altogether and just live.
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