Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think

The Inside of Sister Linda’s Door
In the poorest rural parts of Africa, it is still the nuns who maintain many basic health services.
Some of these clever, hardworking, and pragmatic women became my closest colleagues.
Sister Linda, whom I worked with in Tanzania, was a devout Catholic nun who dressed all in
black and prayed three times a day. The door to her office was always open—she closed it only
during health-care consultations—and on its outside, the first thing you saw as you entered, was a
glossy poster of the pope. One day, she and I were in her office and started discussing a sensitive
matter. Sister Linda stood up and closed the door, and for the first time I saw what was on its
inside: another large poster and, attached to it, hundreds of little bags of condoms. When Sister
Linda turned back around and saw my surprised face she smiled—as she often did when
discovering my countless stereotypes of women like her. “The families need them to stop both
AIDS and babies,” she said simply. And then she continued our discussion.
The situation with abortion is different. Mao’s one-child policy did have an
impact. It resulted in an unknown number of forced abortions and forced
sterilizations. Across the world today, women and girls are still being made
the victims of religious condemnation of abortion. When abortion is made
illegal it doesn’t stop abortions from happening, but it does make abortions
more dangerous and increase the risk of women dying as a result.
More Likely Suspects
I have argued above that we should look at the systems instead of looking for
someone to blame when things go wrong. We should also give more credit to
two kinds of systems when things go right. The invisible actors behind most
human success are prosaic and dull compared to great, all-powerful leaders.
Nevertheless I want to praise them, so let’s throw a parade for the unsung
heroes of global development: institutions and technology.