Once a year...

1000 remarkable people gather in Monterey, California

to exchange something of incalculable value

Their ideas

What happens there has never been shared

...until now

TED ideas worth spreading

[pub BMW]

[applause]

I told you three things last year.

I told you that the statistic of the world is not been made properly available.

Because of that we still have the old mindset of developping/industrialized countries.

Which is wrong.

And that animated graphics can make a difference.

Things are changing and today

on United Nations statistic division home page, it says

by 1st of May, full access to the databases.

[applause]

And ...

if i could share the image with you, on the screen.

There are three things that happened, you know :

You have opened the statistics databases

... and ...

we have a new version of the software

up working [ ] on the net

so you don't have to download it any longer

Let me up repeat what you saw last year

The bubbles are the countries

Here you have the fertility rate,

the number of children per women

and there, you have the length of life in years

This is 1950, those were the industrialised 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 done 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

when i try to be a little more serious this year and showing you how [laughs]

how things really changed

And it is Africa which stands out, that's the problem down here, isn'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 doesn't exist

because this is where we are

will it be possible that this will happen ?

I cover my life time here you know

I expect to live a hundred 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 swap the axis

here you have child mortality

that is survival : 4 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 have some historical statistics

here we go

here we go

here we go

here we , not some much statistics hundred years ago

some countries still had statistics we are looking down in the archives

and we are down into 1820

there is only austria and sweden that can produce numbers.

[laughs/applause (Hans Rosling is from sweden)]

But they were down here

they had one thousand dollars per person per year and they lost one fifth of their kids before the 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 had statistic

aren't they beautiful when they get statistics !

you see the importance of that

and here children don't live longer

the last century 1870 was bad for the kids in Europe

because most of the statistics is Europe

It was only by the turn of the century that more than 90% of the children survived the 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 Moa Tse Toung getting health not getting so rich

Then he died, then Ten Sioa Ping brings money

it moves this way over here [laughs]

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 set, 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 go to the right of the main stream.

They are on the money side all the time

[laughs]

and down in 1915 the United States was a neighbour of India,

present contemporary India.

And that means United States were richer

but lost more kids than India is doing today proportionnaly.

And look here comparing to the philippines of today.

The philippines of today has almost the same economy

as US during the 1st World War but

we have to bring US forward quite a while to find the same health of the US as we have in the Philippines.

About 1957 here, the health of the US is the same as the Philippines.

This is the drama of this world, which men they called globalized

Is that Asia, Arabic Countries, Latin America are much more ahead

in being healthy, educated, having human ressources than they are economically.

There is a discripancy in what is happening today in the emerging economies

There now social benefits, social progress is going ahead of economical progress

and 1957 US had the same economy as Chile has today

and how long do we have to broom US to get the same health that Chile has today ?

i think we have to go there 2001, 2002 US had the same health than Chile

Chile is catching up catching up

within some years Chile may have better child survival than the US.

This is really a change that you have this lag of more or less 30/40 years difference on how they are healthy.

And behind the health is the educational level and there is a lot of infrastructure, things and reliable human ressources 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 US

And i am going to state a race here

between this sort of yellowish Ford here

and the red Toyota down there

and the brownish Volvo.

[laughs]

here we go here we go

the Toyota has a very bad start down here you can see

and US Ford is going off road

The Volvo is doing quite fine

This is the war, the Toyota got off track

And Toyota is coming on the healthiest side of Sweden

can you see that

and they're picking over Sweden

and are now healthier than Sweden

that's about when i sold the Volvo and bought a Toyota and ...

[laughs]

and now we can see that the rate of change was enormous in Japan

They really catched up

and this change is gradual

we have to look over generations to understand it

and let me show you

my own sort of family history

we 've made this graph 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 grand mother was born

Sweden was like Sierra Leone today

And this is when great grand mother was born 1863

Sweden was like Mozambique

And this is when my grand mother was born 1891

She took care of me as a child

So i am not talking about statistics, now it is already history in my family

That's when i believe statistics, when my grandma verifyes statistics you know.

[laughs]

I think it is the best way of verifying historical statistic

Sweden was like Ghana.

It is interesting to see the enormous diversity within subsaharian Africa.

I told you last year, i tell you here

My Mother was born in Egypt

And I , who am i , i am the mexican in the family.

And my daughter, she was born in Chile

And my grand daughter was born in Singapore. Now the healthiest country on this earth.

They bypassed Sweden about two to three years ago with better child survival.

But they are very small you know, they are so closed to the hospital

we can have beaten them without all this forest

[laughs]

but homage to Singapore

Singapore are the best ones.

Now, this looks also like a very good story

but it is not really that easy

that it is all good story

because i have to show you one of the other facility

we can also (bis) make a

the color here represent a variable but what i have chosen here

Carbon DiOxyde (CO2) emission, metric ton per capita

This is 1962

and US was emitting 16 tons per person

and China was emitting 0.6

and India was emitting 0.32 ton per capita

and what happens when we moved on

Well you see the nice story of getting richer and getting healthier

and everyone did it at the cost of emission of CO2

there is no one that haven't done it so far

and we do not have all the updated data anylonger 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 that the emerging economy

They are getting out too much CO2

The minister of the environment of India said

Well you are 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 didn't know it

but 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 as to be changed

i have been criticised to show too positive image of the world but

but i don't think it is like this

the world is quite a messy place

this we can call dollar street

everyone lives on this street here.

what they earn and what number they live on how much they earn per day

This family earns about 1$ per day.

We drive up the street here, we find a family here which earns about 2 to 3 $ a day.

And we drive away here we find the first garden in the street they earn 10 to 15 $ a day.

And how do they leave ?

we look at the bed here

we can see that they sleep on the rug, on the floor

this is what poverty line is

80% of the family income is yes to cover the energy need, the food for the day

this is 2 to 5 $ you have a bed and here it is a much nicer bedroom. you can see

i lectured this for Ikea and they wanted to see the sofa immediately here [laughs]

and this is the sofa how it will emerge from there

and interesting thing when you can go around here in the photo panorama

you see the family still sitting on the floor there and all there is the sofa

if you're watching the kitchen

you can see that the great difference for women doesn't come between 1 to 10 $

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

This 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 any thing like this

i spend 20 years in interviews with african farmers

which was on the verge of famine

and this is the result of the farmers needs research

the nice thing here is that you can't see who are the researchers on this picture

that when research function imports societies

you must really leave with the people

when you are in poverty

it is everything about survival, it's about having food

and these two young farmers they are girls now

because their parents are dead in HIV and AIDS

they discuss with the grain agronomist. This is one of the best agronomist in Malawi Jonathan Bicombira

And he is discussing about what sort of cassava they could plan

the best converter of sunshine to food that man has found

and they are very very eagerly interested to get advice

that is to survive in poverty

that is one context : getting out of poverty

the women told us one thing : get us technology

we hate this moto 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 of ourselves.

technology will bring out of poverty but there is a need for a market to get away from poverty

and this woman is very happy now to bring her product to the market

but she is very thankfull for the public investments in schooling so she can count

and won't be cheated when she reached the market

she wants her kid to be healthier so she can go to the market.

does not have to stay home.

And she wants the infrastructure this nice, with the paved road

That is also good with credits, micro credit gave her the bicycle you know

and information will tell her when to go to market with which products.

You can do this, i find

my experience from 20 years of Africa is that the seamingly impossible is possible

Africa has not done bad.

In fifty years they have gone from premedieval situation

to a very decent one hundred year ago Europe

with its functioning nations and states

i would say that subsaharian Africa have done best in the world during the last 50 years

because we don't consider where they came from

It's a stupid concept of developping countries which put us Argentina and Mozambique together 50 years ago

and said that Mozambique did worst

we have to know a little more about the world

i have a neighbour who knows two hundred types of wine he knows everything,

he knows the name of the grape, the temperature everything

i only know two types of wine, red and white [laughs]

But my neighbour only knows two types of countries

industrialized and developping .

I know 200, i know about the small datas about ... you can do that

[applause]

But let us get serious

but how to get serious, you make a powerpoint you know

[laughs]

Homage to the office package

What is this What is this

What am i telling.

I am telling you that there are many dimensions of development

every one want your pet thing

if you are in the corporate sector you love micro credits you know

if you are fighting in a non governmental organisation you like equity between gender

or if you are a teacher you love your net school and so on

at global level we ask for our own things

we need everything, all these things are important for development

especially when you want to get out of poverty and your goal is towards welfare

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 needs

Economic growth to me

as a public health professor is the most important thing for development

because it explains 80% of survival

Governance, to have a government that functions

that has brought California out of Missouri in 1850

it was the government which make laws function finely.

Education, Human ressources are important

Health is also important but not that much as a mean

Environment is important

Human Rights is also important but it only get one cross

Now what about goals

where are we going towards ?

we are not interested in money, money is not a goal

it is the best mean but i give it zero as a goal

Governance, it's fun to vote and the little thing but it is not so much

and go to school i mean is not a goal it is a mean

Health i give two points, i mean it is nice to be healthy

at my age especially you can stand healthier, that's good, i give two plus.

environment is very very crucial there is nothing for the grand kids if you don't save up

But where are the important goals ?

of course it is Human Rights

Human Rights is a goal but it is not that strong of a mean for achieving development

and Culture

Culture is the most important thing i would say

because that would bring joy to life, that is the value of living

so the seemingly impossible is possible

even african countries can achieve this

and i have shown you the charts

that the seemingly impossible is possible

and remember, please remember my main message

that is this: "the seemingly impossible is possible"

we can have a good world

i show you the charts, i proved it in the powerpoint

and i think i will convince you also by ...

... Culture ...

[laughs/applause]

Bring me my sword

Sword swallowing is from ancient India

it is a cultural expression that for thousands of years

as inspired human beings to think beyond the obvious

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 baionette from the swedish army, 1850

In the last years we had war you know

and it is all solid steel you can hear it

and i am going to,

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

[drums]

[applause]