World according to the Human Development Index

Sometimes it feels like we only engage with Africa through demoralizing statistics. This many millions suffering from Disease X, this many billions in debt, this many millions living below the poverty line.

I’m sick of statistics, and know they’re hard to engage with, but also know that they are necessary to describe the magnitude of the problems that exist on the Continent. Lately, though, I’ve come across these initiatives that work to present data on Africa (mostly in the area of health and economic indicators) in new ways. In his Ted Video, Hans Rosling helps to make the chicken/egg relationship of health and wealth more explicit. Worldmapper represents global regions based on a number of different subject areas, rather on their landmass (such as internet users or affected by disasters).

Pretty Awesome!