Did you know that in 2000, 20% of the world's population made less than a dollar a day?  And that in that same year, 66% of Africa earned less than a dollar a day?  These are the kinds of figures that Gapminder illustrates.  Gapminder is a foundation that develops software for visualizing global development data.  Gapminder projects create visualizations of data such as health, income, child mortality, income distribution, and other topics covered in reports from NGOS's like the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), public agencies, and universities.  Visualization is a powerful way to convey the meaning behind data and Gapminder does it well.  Take a look at their 2005 Human Development Trends presentation, for example.   Sure beats the set of pdfs.