It might not always seem like it, but the world is a much better place than it was just a generation ago, and it’s improving every day.
Really, it’s true—Bill and Melinda Gates have the data to prove it. Last week their foundation released a report that looks at the progress the world has made on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, a blueprint for what the world should look like by 2030. Think of it as a report card on global health.
The verdict? We’re making progress. Six million fewer children died around the world in 2016 than in 1990, partly because more kids received vaccinations. Half as many women now die during childbirth as did a generation ago, because so many more of them give birth in hospitals rather than at home. Today only 9 percent of people live below the international poverty line, compared with 35 percent in 1990.
On Tuesday the Gates Foundation and Unicef came together to hold a major event in New York City to celebrate all the progress that’s been made. The Goalkeepers Global Goals Awards were hosted by U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed and Melinda Gates and honored six inspiring leaders who have changed the world in a major way.
Priyanka Chopra, Unicef goodwill ambassador (and Glamour fan favorite), was there to present the Goalkeeper Award for Leadership. She said it was a great reminder that we should all have hope for the future.
“I’ve met kids around the world in the harshest of circumstances, and they had hope,” she told Glamour. “Who the hell am I, living the life that I do, in the privilege I do, to have no hope? They have hope, so it's a given that I do.”
And last night's honorees were themselves an argument for hope. Take Marieme Jamme, the winner of the Innovation Award. Jamme was born in Senegal, and her mother gave her away at a young age, leaving her to be raised in foster homes and orphanages without any formal education—she was even trafficked to Paris as a young prostitute. But when she was 16, Jamme taught herself how to read and write, and today she’s a tech and education activist who is working to teach one million girls to code by 2030.
When she was a young girl, Jamme wore clothes that Unicef gave to her orphanage. So to be honored by Unicef now? “It’s unbelievable,” she says.
“Today I am privileged, so now what I’m trying to do is go back and say to the leaders, 'Think about the people who are like I was.' My mission is to make sure that we as a society put empathy, compassion, and kindness to use for these people who are forgotten, to give them the skills they need to succeed right now. When you teach a girl to read and write, she becomes so powerful.”
Laura Ulloa, who won the Young Goalkeeper Award, also preached empathy. She was kidnapped by the FARC when she was just 11 and held for nearly a year. But while she was in captivity, she started having conversations with her captors and realized that they were also victims themselves. Now she’s dedicated her life to reintegrating former guerrillas back into society. “Communication is essential, because when we’re not communicating well is when we start having disputes and disagreements, and that can turn into war,” she said.
“But the other thing I think is fundamental is to help those who are in need. We can go through life and see people suffering and we can get used to that, and breaking up that pattern is essential.”
In fact, that’s just the thing the Gates Foundation wants all of us to do. Even though the world is better than it used to be, there’s no guarantee it will keep getting better—and the current political upheaval makes it less certain than ever. In the U.S., the President has already proposed huge cuts to foreign aid, and some other countries have taken similar approaches. If progress stalls, it could change the lives of millions, even billions, of people, and women and girls are especially vulnerable.
"What keeps me up at night is the plight of the kids in the decisions that are made by adults," Chopra said. "We have all these different countries and religions and we're always dividing ourselves, but we have just one world. What kind of world do you want to leave for your children?"
So what can you do to make sure we keep improving? Read the report, share it with your friends, tweet about it using #Goalkeepers17—anything to raise awareness! Put pressure on your elected leaders to make progress toward meeting the Sustainable Development Goals. And take the advice of Ria Sharma, who won the Leadership Award for her work with acid attack survivors.
“Activism is a field that is hard and is demotivating, because it takes so long to see progress,” she says. “But if you can believe that change is a gradual process, then I think you are on the right path.”
