You are here

  1. Home
  2. OU/BBC Co-production Explores Answer to Ending Poverty

OU/BBC Co-production Explores Answer to Ending Poverty

22 September 2015

Don't Panic: How To End Poverty image

In the same week the UN presents its new targets for global development, the Sustainable Development Goals, statistician Professor Hans Rosling examines the challenge of eradicating extreme poverty. In Don't Panic – How to End Poverty in 15 Years, a one-hour BBC programme made in partnership with the OU, Professor Rosling examines the number one goal, that of eradicating 'extreme poverty' –measured as the condition of the almost billion people who live on less than $1.25 a day – by 2030.

The programme was commissioned by the OU's Open Media Unit, and IKD members Paul Anand and Helen Yanacopulos, together with Telematics lecturer Tony Hirst, acted as academic consultants. It will be broadcast on BBC2 at 8pm on Wednesday 23 September 2015.

To assess how achievable the goal is, Professor Rosling weaves compelling statistics together with the stories of individuals from Africa and Asia, arguing that the data reveal recent global progress as 'the greatest story of our time - possibly the greatest story in all of human history'. He concludes by showing why eradicating extreme poverty will be more easily achieved if it is done quickly rather than slowly.

Watch Don’t Panic: How to End Poverty on BBC iPlayer.

Share this page:

Contact us

To find out more about our work, or to discuss a potential project, please contact:

International Development Research Office
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
The Open University
Walton Hall
Milton Keynes
MK7 6AA
United Kingdom

T: +44 (0)1908 858502
E: international-development-research@open.ac.uk