Kristof on Hope for Fighting Poverty

...in Today’s New York Times:

There's hope. Antipoverty work saves around 32,000 children’s lives each day. The number of children who died in 1960: about 20 million; the number dying now, about 8 million a year. That’s one life saved every three seconds.

Literacy rates and school attendance are rising sharply in Africa. More than three-quarters of African youngsters are now enrolled in primary school, up from 58 percent in 1999.

Have you seen the popular “Girl Effect” video on YouTube?

Well, this week its successor was released.

Schools have a better record of fighting terrorism than missiles do and wobbly governments can be buttressed not just with helicopter gunships but also with school lunch programs (at 25 cents per kid per day).

International security is where the money is, but fighting poverty is where the success is.