The World Is Doing Better Than You Think (But Not in the Way You Believe)

Extreme poverty divided by four in a single generation. Child mortality in free fall. 5.9 billion humans connected to the Internet. But also: 61 armed conflicts in 2024, a record since 1946. How do we hold both faces of reality at once?

If you ask the average French person how the world is doing, chances are they'll answer: “badly.” According to a 2023 Ipsos survey, 71 % of French people believe the world is getting worse.

If you then ask them, more specifically, whether extreme poverty has gone up or down over the past twenty years, chances are they'll answer “up.”

That answer is wrong.

And it's precisely this dissonance — between what the data say and what we believe we perceive — that this article sets out to examine. With one simple compass: yielding neither to catastrophism, nor to triumphalism.

The chimpanzee experiment

The idea that we collectively have a distorted view of the world isn't an intuition. It's a documented fact, established by the late Swedish physician and statistician Hans Rosling in his posthumous book Factfulness (2018).

In hundreds of conferences, in dozens of countries, Rosling asked thirteen general-knowledge questions about the state of the world — How many girls go to school in low-income countries? What share of the world's population lives in extreme poverty? How many children have received at least one vaccine? Each question had three possible answers, including a clearly optimistic one.

The results were consistent across categories: journalists, doctors, bankers, political-science students, Nobel laureates.

Rosling called this phenomenon the “negativity bias” — one of ten cognitive biases he identified as distorting our reading of the world. “Good news is not news,” he wrote. “Gradual improvement is not news. And so it almost never gets told.”

It's not about denying the tragedies that fill the front pages. It's about understanding that they fill the front pages precisely because they are exceptional. A school that opens doesn't draw the cameras. A school that burns, yes.

Poverty cut by four

Let's start with the most spectacular figure — and the least known.

In 1990, 38 % of the world's population lived below the World Bank's extreme poverty threshold, meaning on less than $2.15 a day (in purchasing power parity).

In 2024: 8.5 %.

This transformation is one of the fastest in human history. To grasp the scale: between 1990 and today, on average, 130,000 people climbed out of extreme poverty every day. Every day. For 34 years.

Indicator	1990	2024
Global extreme poverty	38 %	8.5 %
World GDP per capita (PPP, constant 2021 dollars)	$10,300	about $22,000
Life expectancy at birth	64 years (world)	73 years
Under-5 mortality (per 1,000 births)	93.5	37.4

This dramatic fall in poverty is largely due to the economic convergence of part of Asia. China alone lifted 800 million people above the extreme-poverty line between 1981 and 2018. Vietnam saw its GDP per capita rise from $700 in 1986 to nearly $4,500 in 2023.

But — and this is the first contradiction we have to hold — this movement has slowed sharply since 2020. According to the World Bank, low-income countries are today poorer than they were before the pandemic. Poverty reduction is “almost at a standstill,” the institution warns.

“The global battle to end extreme poverty will not be won until it is won in the 26 poorest countries.” — Ayhan Kose, World Bank economist

Millions of children who survive

If a single number had to capture human progress over the last thirty years, this might be it.

In 1990, one child in ten did not live to see their fifth birthday. Today: one in twenty-seven. Mortality among children under 5 has fallen from 93.5 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1990 to 37.4 deaths per 1,000 in 2024.

This decline has several drivers: vaccination, maternal care, safe drinking water, sanitation, antibiotics, insecticide-treated bed nets against malaria. According to a study published in The Lancet, global immunization programs have saved at least 154 million lives since 1974 — the equivalent of the entire population of Bangladesh.

Several countries have achieved transformations that defy realism. Rwanda, Cambodia, Malawi and Mongolia have all seen child mortality fall by more than 75 % since 2000.

Yet here too the pace is slowing. Over the last five years, the global rate of decline has slowed markedly. Conflict, pandemics and economic crises have halted certain trajectories.

A child receiving a vaccine, illustrating the global vaccination programs that have saved at least 154 million lives since 1974. — A healthcare worker prepares a vaccine dose, highlighting the role of immunization in reducing child mortality rates.

School and screen

Another massive shift concerns access to knowledge.

Adult literacy rose from around 81 % in 2000 to 87-88 % in 2024 according to UNESCO. The primary-school completion rate went from 78 % in 1990 to 88 % today — a real mass schooling, especially striking in some countries. In Bangladesh, the primary-completion rate jumped from 34 % in 1990 to 90 % in 2024.

Meanwhile, the other invisible revolution is unfolding through screens.

This explosion doesn't mean everything is improving: it also brings disinformation, addiction, surveillance, polarization. But it represents, factually, the largest expansion of access to information in all of human history. More people have access to a doctor online today than to a doctor at all thirty years ago.

A nuance still imposes itself: the quality of learning doesn't always follow the quantity. UNESCO estimates that at least 250 million children in school worldwide cannot read properly by the age of 10. A primary-school certificate doesn't guarantee mastery of the basics.

Water and the invisible

This is probably the least-told progress, and one of the most decisive.

In 2015, 68 % of the world's population had access to safely managed drinking water. In 2024: 74 %. For safely managed sanitation (connected toilets, wastewater treatment), the figure rose from 48 % to 58 % over the same period.

These numbers feel abstract. They are not. One billion more human beings today drink water that won't make them sick. This transformation accounts for a sizeable share of the decline in child mortality.

And one figure rarely cited: in 2000, 1.3 billion people still practised open defecation. Today, fewer than 400 million. A drop of more than 70 % in one generation.

It's still a lot. But it's one of the most powerful — and quietest — markers of contemporary human progress.

Domain	Around 1990-2000	2024
Safely managed drinking water	about 60 %	74 %
Safely managed sanitation	about 40 %	58 %
Open defecation (absolute number)	1.3 billion (2000)	fewer than 400 million
Adult literacy	76 %	87-88 %
Primary-school completion	78 %	88 %
Internet-connected population	0.4 % (1995)	74 %

The return of war

All of this would be beautiful if we stopped here. But reality has two faces.

The year 2024 was, according to the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) — the world's most-used database on armed conflicts — the year the world recorded the highest number of armed conflicts since 1946. Sixty-one active conflicts involving at least one state. Eleven of them crossed the threshold of “war” (more than 1,000 battle-related deaths in the year) — the highest number since 2016.

The June 2025 report by PRIO (Peace Research Institute Oslo) is unambiguous: “We live in a new era, with more conflicts, more intense and more complex.” More worrying still: the number of interstate conflicts (country against country) is at its highest level since 1987.

And civilians, as always, pay the heaviest price: targeted violence against civilian populations rose by 31 % in 2024.

This is where the “the world is doing better” thesis must own its nuance. The underlying trajectories — poverty, health, education — remain positive. But they coexist with a major security regression since 2014, and an acceleration of that deterioration since 2022.

An abandoned tank covered in vegetation in a green field, symbolizing the persistence of armed conflicts. — An abandoned tank, overgrown with vegetation, sits in a field, symbolizing the remnants of past conflicts and ongoing military tensions.

The other massive contradiction is the climate.

On that front, the news isn't good. According to the Global Carbon Budget 2024, global CO₂ emissions hit a record in 2024, with about 41.6 billion tonnes emitted. Atmospheric concentrations keep rising. So do global temperatures: 2024 was the hottest year ever recorded, exceeding for the first time the +1.5 °C threshold above pre-industrial levels.

And yet — a paradox to hold — something is changing in the data.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) confirmed that renewable energies provided more electricity than coal in 2024 for the first time in history. Globally installed renewable capacity grew by +15.1 % in 2024 according to IRENA (International Renewable Energy Agency). China alone installed +116 % of solar capacity in 2023, and +66 % of wind.

Climate / energy indicator	2010	2024
Global CO₂ emissions (GtCO₂)	33	41.6
Renewables share of electricity	20 %	about 30 %
Installed solar capacity (GW, world)	40	more than 1,800
Electric cars sold per year	7,000	about 17 million
Cost of a solar panel	about $2.50/W	less than $0.15/W

The structural shift is real: the energy transition is under way. But it's a race against time. And right now, it's losing: emissions keep rising in absolute terms, even if in relative terms (per dollar of GDP, per inhabitant) they are falling in most developed countries.

Inequalities and nuances

One last important tension: “poverty is falling” doesn't mean “inequalities are gone.” Almost the opposite, in fact.

At the global level, the aggregate Gini coefficient fell from around 70 in 1990 to 62 in 2019, largely because very populated, relatively poor countries have caught up part of their gap. Seen from humanity as a whole, gaps between nations have narrowed.

But within each rich country, gaps have widened. In the OECD zone, the ratio between the average incomes of the top 10 % and the bottom 10 % rose from about 7 to 1 in the 1980s to 8.4 to 1 in 2021. The middle class is eroding. Wealth is concentrating.

In other words: the global world is less unequal, because rich and poor countries are converging. But each society, especially in the North, is polarizing. Both can be true at once. That's exactly what we have to hold.

Why we get it wrong

Which brings us back to the original question: why can't we see this progress, even though the numbers are there, accessible, verifiable?

Hans Rosling identified ten biases. Three are particularly active here.

The negativity bias. Our brain is calibrated by evolution to pay more attention to dangers than to progress. Useful in the savannah, far less so in 2026. The media, by their very construction, amplify this bias: an attack makes the headlines, a school being built does not.

The destiny instinct. We believe that what changes slowly doesn't change at all. Yet the bulk of human progress happens through gradual accumulation, over decades. Every passing day looks like the previous one. But over thirty years, the world tips.

The straight-line instinct. We extrapolate current trends to infinity. Conflicts rise? We picture World War Three. Poverty falls? We imagine its disappearance. Reality is almost always non-linear — S-curves, plateaus, ruptures.

To these three cognitive biases, we have to add a structural media bias. As Rosling wrote:

How to read the world without getting it wrong

A few tools, gleaned from Rosling and confirmed by serious journalistic practice, to read the world more accurately.

1. Compare across time, not in absolute terms. Is the world of 2026 perfect? No. Is the world of 2026 better than that of 1990 on most vital indicators? Yes. The two statements are compatible.

2. Distinguish rates from totals. Poverty as a percentage has plummeted; poverty in absolute numbers remains massive (around 700 million people). Both are true. The meaning of a number depends on how you read it.

3. Look for underlying trends, not peaks. A single year doesn't make a trend. The pandemic dragged several indicators down in 2020-2022; conflicts have risen since 2022. But over thirty years, the trajectory remains largely positive.

4. Read the reports, not just the headlines. Reports by the WHO, UNICEF, the World Bank, UNESCO publish solid, contextualized, free data. Newspaper headlines, by construction, don't show everything.

5. Refuse the “it was better before” trap. For the billions of humans coming out of poverty every year, accessing a doctor for the first time, sending their child to school when they themselves couldn't read — “before” is nothing to envy.

What it changes

Why write an article like this? Not to soothe anyone's conscience. Even less to neutralize legitimate outrage. Quite the opposite.

Seeing clearly the progress we have made also means measuring what that progress cost in terms of public policy: vaccination campaigns, education systems, trade agreements, health systems, public spending, NGOs, international cooperation. Human progress did not fall from the sky. It was built — by states, doctors, teachers, engineers, international civil servants, activists.

Understanding that the world has improved is also understanding what worked, and therefore what must be defended.

Conversely, systemic pessimism is a political trap. If we believe that everything is getting worse, we stop investing in what made the difference. We let budgets be cut for international cooperation, public hospitals, vaccination programs. And there, yes — the world really does start getting worse.

That is probably the real message of this piece.

The world of 2026 has immense problems. Climate, conflict, inequality, authoritarianism, future pandemics. But it faces them with more education, more health, more connection, more scientific knowledge and more average wealth than ever before in its history.

That is precious political capital. We just have to be willing to see it.

Main sources

This article is part of a series on the blind spots of information. If you work on global data — researcher, journalist, statistician, humanitarian — and would like to share a complement, write to us at hello@kero.media.

The World Is Doing Better Than You Think (But Not in the Way You Believe)