The future can be better for world’s poorest

Despite problems in the way of helping the poor, there are reasons to hope, writes Bill Gates

THE lives of the world’s poorest people have improved more rapidly in the past 15 years than ever before, yet I am optimistic that we will do even better in the next 15 years.

After all, human knowledge is increasing. We can see this concretely in the development and declining costs of new medicines like HIV drugs, and in the creation of new seeds that allow poor farmers to be more productive. Once such tools are invented, they are never un-invented — they just improve.