We do all, at least occasionally, need to poke our heads up from the readings of our own dogmas and do a little reality check. Have a look at the real world and make sure that the effects are indeed as we would have theory predict. That neoliberal globalisation thing then, perhaps that application of the Washington Consensus to the abject poverty of Africa, how's that working out then? We saw last week that increased openness to trade leads to economic growth: but as we know, economic growth does not necessarily leads to an improvement in the lives of the poorest. Perhaps we should, as so many NGOs advise us, change our tactics?

That is the annual change in child mortality in those selected countries. No country, no group of countries, has ever seen anything like this, it simply has not happened so quickly anywhere else at all. Something, blessedly, is going very right indeed in this world. My suggestion is that we keep doing exactly what it is that we are currently doing: we might call it globalisation, foreign direct investment, openness to trade or as Madsen puts it, buying things made by poor people in poor countries. But it's working, isn't it?