Charles Kenny profiled for Christianity Today about Getting Better.
Generations of news media have branded the academic discipline of economics "the dismal science" for its gloomy forecasts.
But Charles Kenny, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, calls himself "an optimistic economist" and has reported compelling evidence that the global economic glass is at least half-full. His contrarian 2011 book, Getting Better: Why Global Development Is Succeeding—And How We Can Improve the World Even More (Basic Books), takes an evidence-based approach to the study of global poverty.
Each year, billions of dollars in aid are spent to achieve the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals. Three of the eight goals directly connect to the welfare of children: eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, and reducing child-mortality rates by two-thirds.
UN member states adopted the goals in 2000 and set a deadline of 2015, now 18 months away. Kenny said that while not all those goals will be achieved by then, the progress has been significant. He recently spoke with Christianity Today senior editor of global journalism Timothy C. Morgan about his findings.