Washington Post: Child death rates are down. It’s cause for optimism.
Editorial Board

“Humankind knows no greater tragedy than the death of a small child. Thanks to quiet but powerful progress in public health, that tragedy is far less common than it once was — including in the planet’s developing regions. Many factors account for these improving numbers, which are laid out in a report by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. … Child mortality is far from the only area of improvement. In fact, the Gates Foundation’s report notes, ‘Health and education are improving everywhere in the world.’ … There is no cause for complacency. The report’s title, ‘Examining Inequality,’ is properly intended to emphasize that people’s life chances are still far too often a matter of such factors as geography and gender. … Awareness of these differences can and should help focus resources, including what must be sustained U.S. government support, on those areas where the need is greatest…” (9/24).

Devex: Opinion: Activists — here’s how to use the Gates Goalkeepers report
Jamie Drummond, advocacy entrepreneur who co-founded ONE with Bono and other activists

“The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s 2019 Goalkeepers report touches on the existential themes of our time — issues such as gender, climate, and inequality — that most regularly get activists on the streets in democracies. … But whether around financing or how to overcome the bad politics in the way of good policy, or how to scale win-wins between climate and inequality campaigners, the report is too quiet. Campaigners armed with the great data in this report can’t be. Activists need to seize the opportunity presented to take the argument further, faster, shifting where necessary from Bill and Melinda’s mantra of ‘impatient optimism’ toward sometimes impolite activism. … So for all those who would divide humanity, let’s remind them our common biology is inescapable before these [infectious disease] killers. Just as with climate change, so with these infectious diseases — in both cases, we face a common threat that could help us form a stronger global identity. … Global Goals Week 2019 and this Goalkeepers Report are all great parts of the wake-up call. We must now make it much, much louder” (9/25).