I was sitting across from various diplomats of the United Nations (UN) member states in conference room 4 at the UN Headquarters in New York. With interpreters speaking rapidly in the background and everyone scanning through the volumes of notes sitting in front of them, the atmosphere was electric with buzz of policy ideas and back and forth discussions about the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and targets.

In some ways, the world is getting better. It’s something that I tend to forget sometimes. Amid all the doom-ridden headlines and the pictures of polar bears treading water, literacy rates are improving, people are escaping extreme poverty and our path as a society has continually become more equal and less violent with an improved quality of life.