In Race Against Time Lewis describes how the world is falling desperately short of UN goals for reducing poverty, inequality, and mortality rates.

Lewis's determination to bear witness to the desperate plight of so many in Africa and elsewhere is balanced by his unique, personal, and often searing insider's perspective on our ongoing failure to help. In audacious prose, alive with anecdotes ranging from maddening to hilarious to heartbreaking, Lewis probes the appalling gap between vision and current reality. But he also offers bracingly attainable solutions to help us avoid what will otherwise be a terrible stain on the record of human achievement in the twenty-first century.