If you've never come across Hans Rosling before, I highly recommend watching one or two of his videos on world statistics.

His overall point is that the world is doing much better than you may think. He uses a lot of data that he makes publicly available and shows which metrics are the best measure of progress and why.

Aside from that, he's also a very entertaining and engaging communicator.

Here's a relevant article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24835822