The author reflects on the past years of changes in the developing world, showing how aid interventions, inexpensive yet effective technologies and the spread of political ideas has helped developing countries and explaining what can be done in the future to continue this progress.

Vorwort
"Elegant and deeply researched... a powerful antidote to overly gloomy assessments of development aid...Charles Kenny shines a light on the real successes of aid, and he shows us the benefits that additional smart investment can bring."-Bill Gates, Wall Street Journal

Autorentext

Charles Kenny, previously a senior economist at the World Bank, is now a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development and a columnist for Bloomberg Businessweek and Foreign Policy magazines. He lives in Washington, DC.

Klappentext

As the income gap between developed and developing nations grows, so grows the cacophony of voices claiming that the quest to find a simple recipe for economic growth has failed. Getting Better, in sharp contrast, reports the good news about global progress. Economist Charles Kenny argues against development naysayers by pointing to the evidence of widespread improvements in health, education, peace, liberty -- and even happiness.

Kenny shows how the spread of cheap technologies, such as vaccines and bed nets, and ideas, such as political rights, has transformed the world. He also shows that by understanding this transformation, we can make the world an even better place to live.

That's not to say that life is grand for everyone, or that we don't have a long way to go. But improvements have spread far, and, according to Kenny, they can spread even further.