Book Presentation At WIPO Brings An Injection Of Optimism

In a new book presented last week at the World Intellectual Property Organisation, an optimistic British economist suggests a shift in the way we think about global development by overcoming income as a unique indicator to evaluate worldwide progress.

This approach is explored by Charles Kenny in his new book, “Getting Better: Why Global Development is Succeeding And How We Can Improve the World Even More.”

Kenny presented the book on 26 March at WIPO.

A WIPO spokesperson said afterward that WIPO “is the leading global forum for the promotion of intellectual property as a force for innovation and creativity to achieve positive change. As part of a long-standing effort, we seek to hear a diverse range of voices.”

Getting Better, in sharp contrast with the literature of failure that surrounds development, points out good news about global progress, Kenny said afterward.

Kenny’s key idea is not to consider income as main marker to assess growth between developed and developing countries, but instead show evidence of convergence in the quality of life around the world such as in health, education, peace, liberty, and even happiness.

“The world as whole, income aside, is massively a better place for everybody as compared to 50 years ago,” he said. The spread of cheap technology – like vaccines and bed nets – and ideas has been one of the most important factors for these improvements and it is not expected to stop there.

Kenny also briefly mentioned a second book, “The Upside of Down: Why the Rise of the Rest is Good for the West,” which he said aims to tackle the fear that the rapid rise of the developing nations will weaken the influence of the US and European Union as well as the quality of life.

On the contrary, there is an incredible upside for western societies, he said, such as a wider variety of choices, cheaper prices, more places to invest and new gains from migration flow.

Now the key to prospering in the world, he said, is to figure out how best to take advantage of this new global force.

Joséphine De Ruyck is an intern at Intellectual Property Watch. She is currently finishing an LLM degree in intellectual property rights and ITC law at University of Leuven in Belgium. She holds a Master’s Degree in Law with honours from University of Louvain and an LLM degree from Queen Mary University of London. She has a strong interest in several intellectual property issues, especially access to health, climate change and challenges faced by copyright law.