Graphic from World Bank/WorldBank.org

The Millennium Development Goals, a time-sensitive agenda of specific initiatives for the developing world, was proposed by member states of the United Nations in September 2000.

The 2015 deadline for these goals passed last month, and the progress made on what the UN Secretary-General called a “blueprint for ending extreme poverty” is impressive, to put it mildly. The MDGs, which include promoting gender equality, combating HIV, reducing child mortality and eradicating poverty and hunger have all seen astounding advancements in relation to their historic levels.

Of the eight broad and ambitious goals put forth 15 years ago, all have seen progress that can be attributed to active investment and awareness from people and governing bodies worldwide. The statistics found in the MDG report are conclusive in their implications. There is a cause for hope and a possibility that perhaps one day, the existence of humanity will not be synonymous with the existence of extreme poverty.

While not all of the goals have been fully met, the international community has observed a distinct improvement in its relation to hunger and suffering. The proportion of people living in UN-defined extreme poverty has decreased by more than a billion people, and the child mortality rate has been reduced by half.

New HIV infections have fallen by over 40 percent, the number of children attending primary school has increased, as has gender parity of enrollment. More people have access to clean water, antiretrovirals, malaria nets and healthcare professionals than they did at the outset of the initiative.

To bring these numbers into perspective, you and I are significantly less likely to suffer from malaria, HIV, extreme poverty or hunger than at any other point in human history. Our children are more likely to live past infancy and grow up with an education, and our daughters are more likely to access opportunities at the same rate as our sons. At the most basic level, the last 15 years have seen the largest improvement in the quality of life for humanity as a whole than ever before.

That said, over 800 million people still live in preventable poverty as well as in hunger, and an unthinkable 16,000 children die each day before reaching their fifth birthday. One set of promises to the developing world cannot fix everything. While there is a substantial gap between where we are and where we need to be, the vast improvements mentioned above are demonstrative of a wider and all-pervasive trend: hope for the future is validated.

This is the same hope expressed by Martin Luther King Jr. when he famously declared during the 1965 march on Selma that, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” While the focus then was racial justice, the imagery of a guiding moral arc also has larger implications.

The phrase used by King is actually derived from the transcendentalist minister Theodore Parker, who posited it in a sermon: “I do not pretend to understand the moral universe, the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways. I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. But from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.”

Considering King’s words, we cannot pretend to understand the extensive plurality of poverty, its causes and the nuances of its effects. However, this incomprehensibility in no way constitutes a resignation to destitution and disease. We cannot wait for equity of opportunity to just happen. Patience may be a virtue, but so is proactivity. In the same way that cynicism is in the business of breeding indifference, optimism resolutely presses on towards something hopeful that has yet to be seen. The process may be slow, but it is nonetheless beginning .

While this claim may seem excessively buoyant, moralistic and unsubstantiated to some, the vitality of Parker’s argument lies in circumventing apathy. It is achieved by having people and organizations truly and deeply caring about the cause of justice and make a concerted effort to bend the arc themselves everyday. People permit progress just as much as they prevent it.

Looking forward, a new post-2015 development agenda has been adopted. The Sustainable Development Goals, set by the UN this September, are in a myriad of ways more ambitious and uncertain in their attainability than the MDGs. With a focus on development through methods that are both environmentally conscious and collaborative, humanity is upon its largest challenge and greatest opportunity yet. The question we face now is not which direction the arc bends, but to what degree can we influence its slope.