Conditions are rapidly improving for the world's poorest people. Between 2015 and 2024, billions of people gained access to safe water and sanitation, though 1 in 4 still lack safe drinking water.

"Between 2015 and 2024, humanity recorded one of the fastest expansions of basic welfare of all time: 961 million people gained safe drinking water, 1.2 billion gained safe sanitation, and 1.5 billion gained access to basic hygiene services, while the number of unserved fell by nearly 900 million. Coverage has risen to 74%, 58% and 80% respectively, while open defecation has dropped by 429 million people."

One of the most depressing of human biases is to hyperfocus on bad news, to the exclusion of positive things. 'If it bleeds, it leads, ' as the TV news shows say. Even in the social media age, where TV news is fading in importance, the same instincts predominate.

The results? People think the state of the world is much worse than it is. Not just that, they think they are powerless to change things for the better.

Meanwhile, groups of people like UNICEF and WHO, often dismissed as irrelevant do-gooders, go about making the world a better place. If the numbers given access to basic water and sanitation can jump this much in 9 years, then giving it to nearly 100% of people is in our future, and maybe sooner than we think.

1 in 4 people globally still lack access to safe drinking water – WHO, UNICEF