Economist Andy Sumner recently stated that COVID-19 could greatly increase global poverty, setting the world back 10 years and some regions back 30 years. In talking with our global team, I’m afraid he is right. Poverty has accelerated in the last few months, and we are only beginning to see the long-term impacts of...
Just over 150 years ago, John Alvord—a minister and abolitionist—celebrated when President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. But he knew that a change in legal status—finally recognizing our shared humanity—was only the beginning. As men and women began to rebuild their lives in post-slavery America, he understood that it would be essential for former...
Could we see the end of extreme poverty in our lifetime? Just two hundred years ago, almost the entire world’s population lived in extreme poverty. Today, less than 10 percent do. (In the past forty years alone, the percent of people living in extreme poverty has dropped by over 30 percentage points.) In my...