Jim Yong Kim is leading a global effort to end extreme poverty and promote shared prosperity.

What makes a great school system? To find out, Andreas Schleicher administers a test to compare student performance around the world.

Danny Dorling teaches and writes about the geography of our human world.

Journalist Andrew Mwenda has spent his career fighting for free speech and economic empowerment throughout Africa. He argues that aid makes objects of the poor -- they become passive recipients of charity rather than active participants in their own economic betterment.

Shukla Bose is the founder and head of the Parikrma Humanity Foundation, a nonprofit that runs four extraordinary schools for poor children.

Geopolitical futurist Parag Khanna foresees a world in which megacities, supply chains and connective technologies redraw the map away from states and borders.

In Hans Rosling’s hands, data sings. Global trends in health and economics come to vivid life. And the big picture of global development -- with some surprisingly good news -- snaps into sharp focus.

Tim Jackson is a British ecological economist and professor for sustainable development at the University of Surrey. He is the author of "Prosperity without Growth" and director of the Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity.

Sanjay Pradhan is vice president of the World Bank Institute, helping leaders in developing countries learn skills for reform, development and good governance.

Paul Romer's research on catch-up growth in low- and middle-income countries has emphasized the importance of government policies that encourage orderly urban expansion.

Sanjit “Bunker” Roy is the founder of Barefoot College, which helps rural communities becomes self-sufficient.

An exploration of what we can do to save the world with the massive amounts of data collected every day.

Ian Goldin brings fresh thinking to bear on the big, looming issues of the future.

David Damberger’s work with Engineers Without Borders has taken him from communities in India to Southern Africa to help build infrastructure -- and learn.

Asher Hasan's social enterprise Naya Jeevan (the name means "new life" in Urdu and Hindi) is the emerging world's first HMO for the urban, working poor.

Michael Green is part of the team that has created the Social Progress Index, a standard to rank societies based on how they meet the needs of citizens.

Food is a shared necessity -- but also a shared way of thinking, argues Carolyn Steel. Looking at food networks offers an unusual and illuminating way to explore how cities evolved.

Sophal Ear leads research on post-conflict countries -- looking at the effectiveness of foreign aid and the challenge of development in places like his native land, Cambodia.

Christiana Figueres is an internationally recognized leader on climate action and steered the global diplomatic effort that culminated in the 2015 Paris Agreement.

International aid groups make the same mistakes over and over again. David Damberger analyzes his own engineering failure in India -- and calls for his friends in the development sector to publicly admit, scrutinize and learn from their missteps.

Achim Steiner is a global leader in sustainable development and international cooperation.

How do we make sure that development and aid money actually goes to the people who most need it? Sanjay Pradhan of the World Bank Institute lays out three guidelines to help relief efforts make the most impact -- while curbing corruption. One key: connecting the players who are working to change broken systems with the data they need.

In 2000, the UN laid out 8 goals to make the world better by reducing poverty and disease -- with a deadline of 2015. As that deadline approaches, Jamie Drummond of ONE.org runs down the surprising successes of the 8 Millennium Development Goals, and suggests a crowdsourced reboot for the next 15 years.

Can we end hunger and poverty, halt climate change and achieve gender equality in the next 15 years? The governments of the world think we can. Meeting at the UN in September 2015, they agreed to a new set of Global Goals for the development of the world to 2030. Social progress expert Michael Green invites us to imagine how these goals and thei...

As globalization and technological advances bring us hurtling towards a new integrated future, Ian Goldin warns that not all people may benefit equally. But, he says, if we can recognize this danger, we might yet realize the possibility of improved life for everyone.

Developing countries need strong alliances between the public and private sectors to rebuild after COVID-19, says Achim Steiner, administrator for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). From building virus tracking systems to supporting clean energy projects and expanding health care, hear how the UNDP is creating partnerships between ...

When most well-intentioned aid workers hear of a problem they think they can fix, they go to work. This, Ernesto Sirolli suggests, is naïve. In this funny and impassioned talk, he proposes that the first step is to listen to the people you're trying to help, and tap into their own entrepreneurial spirit. His advice on what works will help any en...

In a talk about how we can build a robust future without wrecking the planet, sustainability expert Johan Rockström debuts the Earth3 model -- a new methodology that combines the UN Sustainable Development Goals with the nine planetary boundaries, beyond which earth's vital systems could become unstable. Learn more about five transformational po...

Melinda Gates makes a provocative case: What can nonprofits learn from mega-corporations like Coca-Cola, whose global network of marketers and distributors ensures that every remote village wants -- and can get -- an ice-cold Coke? Maybe this model could work for distributing health care, vaccinations, sanitation, even condoms ...

Kristen Wenz is an emerging leader in the international development community and is regarded as a top global expert on legal identity.