| I told you three things last year . I told you that the statistics of the world have not been made properly available . Because of that , we still have the old mindset of developing and industrialized countries , which is wrong . And that animated graphics can make a difference . Things are changing . And today , on the United Nations Statistic Division Home Page , it says , by first of May , full access to the databases . ( Applause ) And if I could share the image with you on the screen . So three things had happened . U. N. opened their statistic databases , and we have a new version of the software up working as a beta on the net , so you do n't have to download it any longer . And let me repeat what you saw last year . The bubbles are the countries . Here you have the fertility rate -- the number of children per woman -- and there you have the length of life in years . This is 1950 -- those were the industrialized countries , those were developing countries . At that time there was a " we " and " them . " There was a huge difference in the world . But then it changed , and it went on quite well . And this is what happens . You can see how China is the red , big bubble ; the blue there is India . And they go over all this ... I 'm going to try to be a little more serious this year in showing you how things really changed . And it 's Africa which stands out as the problem down here , does n't it ? Large families still , and the HIV epidemic brought down the countries like this . This is more or less what we saw last year , and this is how it will go on into the future . And I will talk on , is this possible ? Because you see now , I presented statistics that do n't exist . Because this is where we are . Will it be possible that this will happen ? I cover my lifetime here , you know ? I expect to live 100 years . And this is where we are today . Now could we look here at instead the economic situation in the world ? And I would like to show that against child survival . We 'll swap the axis : here you have child mortality -- that is , survival -- four kids dying there , 200 dying there . And this is GDP per capita on this axis . And this was 2007. And if I go back in time , I 've added some historical statistics -- here we go , here we go , here we go -- not so much statistics 100 years ago . Some countries still had statistics . We are looking down in the archive , and where we are down into 1820 , there is only Austria and Sweden that can produce numbers . ( Laughter ) But they were down here , they had 1,000 dollars per person per year . And they lost one-fifth of their kids before their first birthday . So this is what happens in the world , if we play the entire world . How they got slowly richer and richer , and they add statistics . Is n't it beautiful when they get statistics ? You see the importance of that ? And here , children do n't live longer . The last century , 1870 , was bad for the kids in Europe , because most of this statistics is Europe . It was only by the turn of the century that more than 90 percent of the children survived their first year . This is India coming up , with the first data from India . And this is the United States moving away here , earning more money . And we will soon see China coming up in the very far end corner here . And it moves up with Mao Tse-Tung getting health , not getting so rich . There he died , then Deng Xiaoping brings money , it moves this way over here . And the bubbles keep moving up there , and this is what the world looks like today . ( Applause ) Let us have a look at the United States . We have a function here -- I can tell the world , " Stay where you are . " And I take the United States -- we still want to see the background -- I put them up like this , and now we go backwards . And we can see that the United States goes to the right of the mainstream . They are on the money side all the time . And down in 1915 , the United States was a neighbor of India -- present , contemporary India . And that means United States was richer , but lost more kids than India is doing today , proportionally . And look here -- compare to the Philippines of today . The Philippines of today has almost the same economy as the United States during the First World War . But we have to bring United States forward quite a while to find the same health of the United States as we have in the Philippines . About 1957 here , the health of the United States is the same as the Philippines . And this is the drama of this world which many call globalized , is that Asia , Arabic countries , Latin America , are much more ahead in being healthy , educated , having human resources than they are economically . There 's a discrepancy in what 's happening today in the emerging economies . There now , social benefits , social progress , are going ahead of economical progress . And 1957 -- the United States had the same economy as Chile has today . And how long do we have to bring United States to get the same health as Chile has today ? I think we have to go , there -- we have 2001 , or 2002 -- the United States has the same health than Chile . Chile 's catching up ! Within some years Chile may have better child survival than the United States . This is really a change , that you have this lag of more or less 30 , 40 years ' difference on the health . And behind the health is the educational level . And there 's a lot of infrastructure things , and general human resources are there . Now we can take away this -- and I would like to show you the rate of speed , the rate of change , how fast they have gone . And we go back to 1920 , and I want to look at Japan . And I want to look at Sweden and the United States . And I 'm going to stage a race here between this sort of yellowish Ford here and the red Toyota down there , and the brownish Volvo . ( Laughter ) And here we go , here we go . The Toyota has a very bad start down here , you can see , and the United States Ford is going off-road there . And the Volvo is doing quite fine . This is the war . The Toyota got off track , and now the Toyota is coming on the healthier side of Sweden -- can you see that ? And they are taking over Sweden , and they are now healthier than Sweden . That 's the part where I sold the Volvo and bought the Toyota . ( Laughter ) And now we can see that the rate of change was enormous in Japan . They really caught up . And this changes gradually . We have to look over generations to understand it . And let me show you my own sort of family history -- we made these graphs here . And this is the same thing , money down there , and health , you know ? And this is my family . This is Sweden , 1830 , when my great-great-grandma was born . Sweden was like Sierra Leone today . And this is when great-grandma was born , 1863. And Sweden was like Mozambique . And this is when my grandma was born , 1891. She took care of me as a child , so I 'm not talking about statistic now -- now it 's oral history in my family . That 's when I believe statistics , when it 's grandma-verified statistics . ( Laughter ) I think it 's the best way of verifying historical statistics . Sweden was like Ghana . It 's interesting to see the enormous diversity within sub-Saharan Africa . I told you last year , I 'll tell you again , my mother was born in Egypt , and I -- who am I ? I 'm the Mexican in the family . And my daughter , she was born in Chile , and the grand-daughter was born in Singapore , now the healthiest country on this Earth . It bypassed Sweden about two to three years ago , with better child survival . But they 're very small , you know . They 're so close to the hospital we can never beat them out in these forests . ( Laughter ) But homage to Singapore . Singapore are the best ones , now . Now this looks also like a very good story . But it 's not really that easy , that it 's all a good story . Because I have to show you one of the other facility . We can also make the color here represent the variable -- and what am I choosing here ? Carbon-dioxide emission , metric ton per capita . This is 1962 , and United States was emitting 16 tons per person . And China was emitting 0.6 , and India was emitting 0.32 tons per capita . And what happens when we moved on ? Well , you see the nice story of getting richer and getting healthier -- everyone did it at the cost of emission of carbon dioxide . There is no one who has done it so far . And we do n't have all the updated data any longer , because this is really hot data today . And there we are , 2001. And in the discussion I attended with global leaders , you know , many say now , the problem is the emerging economies , they are getting out too much carbon dioxide . The Minister of the Environment of India said , " Well , you were the one who caused the problem . " The OECD countries -- the high-income countries -- they were the ones who caused the climate change . " But we forgive you , because you did n't know it . But from now on , we count per capita . From now on we count per capita . And everyone is responsible for the per capita emission . " This really shows you , we have not seen good economic and health progress anywhere in the world without destroying the climate . And this is really what has to be changed . I 've been criticized for showing you a too positive image of the world , but I do n't think it 's like this . The world is quite a messy place . This we can call Dollar Street . Everyone lives on this street here . What they earn here -- what number they live on -- is how much they earn per day . This family earns about one dollar per day . We drive up the street here , we find a family here which earns about two to three dollars a day . And we drive away here -- we find the first garden in the street , and they earn 10 to 50 dollars a day . And how do they live ? If we look at the bed here , we can see that they sleep on a rug on the floor . This is what poverty line is -- 80 percent of the family income is just to cover the energy needs , the food for the day . This is two to five dollars , you have a bed . And here it 's a much nicer bedroom , you can see . I lectured on this for Ikea , and they wanted to see the sofa immediately here . ( Laughter ) And this is the sofa , how it will emerge from there . And the interesting thing , when you go around here in the photo panorama , you see the family still sitting on the floor there , although there is a sofa . If you watch in the kitchen , you can see that the great difference for women does not come between one to 10 dollar . It comes beyond here , when you really can get good working conditions in the family . And if you really want to see the difference , you look at the toilet over here . This can change , this can change . These are all pictures and images from Africa , and it can become much better . We can get out of poverty . My own research has not been in IT or anything like this . I spent 20 years in interviews with African farmers who were on the verge of famine . And this is the result of the farmers-needs research . The nice thing here is that you ca n't see who are the researchers in this picture . That 's when research functions for societies -- you must really live with the people . When you 're in poverty , everything is about survival . It 's about having food . And these two young farmers , they are girls now -- because the parents are dead from HIV and AIDS -- they discuss with a trained agronomist . This is one of the best agronomists in Malawi , Junatambe Kumbira , and he 's discussing what sort of cassava they will plant -- the best converter of sunshine to food that man has found . And they are very , very eagerly interested to get advice , and that 's to survive in poverty . That 's one context . Getting out of poverty . The women told us one thing . " Get us technology . We hate this mortar , to stand hours and hours . Get us a mill so that we can mill our flour , then we will be able to pay for the rest ourselves . " Technology will bring you out of poverty , but there 's a need for a market to get away from poverty . And this woman is very happy now , bringing her products to the market . But she 's very thankful for the public investment in schooling so she can count , and wo n't be cheated when she reaches the market . She wants her kid to be healthy , so she can go to the market and does n't have to stay home . And she wants the infrastructure -- it is nice with a paved road There 's also good with credit . Micro-credits gave her the bicycle , you know . And information will tell her when to go to market with which product . You can do this . I find my experience from 20 years of Africa is that the seemingly impossible is possible . Africa has not done bad . In 50 years they 've gone from a pre-Medieval situation to a very decent 100-year-ago Europe , with a functioning nation and state . I would say that sub-Saharan Africa has done best in the world during the last 50 years . Because we do n't consider where they came from . It 's this stupid concept of developing countries which puts us , Argentina and Mozambique together 50 years ago , and says that Mozambique did worse . We have to know a little more about the world . I have a neighbor who knows 200 types of wine . He knows everything . He knows the name of the grape , the temperature and everything . I only know two types of wine -- red and white . ( Laughter ) But my neighbor only knows two types of countries -- industrialized and developing . And I know 200 , I know about the small data . But you can do that . ( Applause ) But I have to get serious . And how do you get serious ? You make a PowerPoint , you know ? ( Laughter ) Homage to the Office package , no ? What is this , what is this , what am I telling ? I 'm telling you that there are many dimensions of development . Everyone wants your pet thing . If you are in the corporate sector , you love micro-credit . If you are fighting in a non-governmental organization , you love equity between gender . Or if you are a teacher , you 'll love UNESCO , and so on . On the global level , we have to have more than our own thing . We need everything . All these things are important for development , especially when you just get out of poverty and you should go towards welfare . Now , what we need to think about is , what is a goal for development , and what are the means for development ? Let me first grade what are the most important means . Economic growth to me , as a public-health professor , is the most important thing for development , because it explains 80 percent of survival . Governance . To have a government that functions -- that 's what brought California out of the misery of 1850. It was the government which made law function finally . Education , human resources are important . Health is also important , but not that much as a mean . Environment is important . Human rights is also important , but it just gets one cross . Now what about goals ? Where are we going toward ? We are not interested in money . Money is not a goal . It 's the best mean , but I give it zero as a goal . Governance , well it 's fun to vote in a little thing , but it 's not a goal . And going to school , that 's not a goal , it 's a mean . Health I give two points . I mean it 's nice to be healthy -- at my age especially -- you can stand here , you 're healthy . And that 's good , it gets two plusses . Environment is very , very crucial . There 's nothing for the grandkid if you do n't save up . But where are the important goals ? Of course , it 's human rights . Human rights is the goal , but it 's not that strong of a mean for achieving development . And culture . Culture is the most important thing , I would say , because that 's what brings joy to life . That 's the value of living . So the seemingly impossible is possible . Even African countries can achieve this . And I 've shown you the shot where the seemingly impossible is possible . And remember , please remember my main message , which is this : the seemingly impossible is possible . We can have a good world . I showed you the shots , I proved it in the PowerPoint , and I think I will convince you also by culture . ( Laughter ) ( Applause ) Bring me my sword ! Sword swallowing is from ancient India . It 's a cultural expression that for thousands of years has inspired human beings to think beyond the obvious . ( Laughter ) And I will now prove to you that the seemingly impossible is possible by taking this piece of steel -- solid steel -- this is the army bayonet from the Swedish Army , 1850 , in the last year we had war . And it 's all solid steel -- you can hear here . And I 'm going to take this blade of steel , and push it down through my body of blood and flesh , and prove to you that the seemingly impossible is possible . Can I request a moment of absolute silence ? ( Applause ) |