Is it too optimistic to think that, with just a few years to go to the end of the millennium, the world is becoming a better place to live in for most of its citizens?
Or that the chaos that descended on the world with the demise of the Cold War is resolving itself, as fledgling democracies take flight and civil warriors reach a stalemate and sue for peace?
Or that AIDS has peaked in the developed world, and new counter-measures are slowly being introduced in the poor countries? Or that the Kyoto conference can come up with meaningful solutions to the problems posed by climate change?
Yes, it probably is too optimistic to hope all this. But there is evidence that some of the pieces of the jigsaw are being fitted in the right places.
For a start, the year passed without a major catastrophe. The nearest miss was in North Korea, where mass starvation has been staved off for the moment. The tightly-controlled and secretive Communist regime in Pyongyang is a special case to which no post-Cold War paradigm can be applied.
But even here, an international relief effort was organised by the non-governmental organisations in the teeth of indifference from the big powers. Trocaire and Concern both played their part effectively.
More NGO and small country pressure, helped by the publicity following the death of Princess Diana, helped to achieve a breakthrough in the campaign to ban landmines. The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Andrews, was one of the first to sign the international treaty banning landmines in Ottawa a fortnight ago. So did 124 other countries, but there were some notable absentees, including the US, Russia, China, Iraq and Iran.
There are other reasons for optimism. Defence spending is still falling. South American economies are booming. And there are the first modest signs that even the traditional "basket-case" of world economies, sub-Saharan Africa, is making a recovery. This coincides with a new level of self-confidence, as a fresh generation of post-colonial leaders aspire to find African solutions to African problems.
Countries like Uganda are not only showing the way economically, they are also taking the first small steps to fight AIDS. Up to 40 per cent of women in Kampala are HIV positive, according to some reports, but the World Health Organisation says the country is becoming more effective in preventing and treating the disease.
Nonetheless, the latest figures show that one person in every 100 worldwide is HIV positive. The vast majority of cases are in the developing world, where the disease threatens to surpass malaria as the greatest killer.
Uganda also became the first recipient of a debt relief package from the world financial institutions this year, but it was a lot smaller and came a lot later than desired. Compare the World Bank's $338 million package for Uganda with its £37 billion bailout of South Korea.
That would-be guarantor of human rights and world peace, the United Nations, is in better shape than for some time. Kofi Annan has provided energetic leadership since becoming secretary general and his reforms are being implemented slowly. His appointment of Mary Robinson as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights amounts to an explicit and overdue recognition that development and human rights are closely linked.
At this time last year, the unfolding crisis in Zaire was the main headache for the world community. Now, Zaire has reverted to being the Congo, Mobutu's despotic regime has fallen and a frail peace has fallen on the region.
A succession of peace plans and proposed international forces fell by the wayside as might asserted itself and Laurent Kabila seized power. The affair showed up the limitations of a UN diplomacy not reinforced by any military capability. That Kabila has led UN human rights investigators a merry dance since then only makes their shortcomings more obvious.
Against the good news, consider that three billion people - half the world's population - continue to live on £1 a day. That just 1 per cent of world income would eradicate poverty worldwide. Or that debt relief for the 20 worst-affected countries would cost less than one stealth bomber.
Yet the West's commitment to the poor declines by the day. Aid spending fell last year to the lowest level since statistics began in 1950 - only Ireland is bucking this trend.
Private investment is increasingly held out as the most efficient way to improve the lot of the developing world. Private aid flows have tripled and are now four times as large as those supplied by states. Such investment has its merits, but experience up to now shows it can be a blunt instrument. The poorest countries miss out, and even in those states which do benefit, the gap between rich and poor increases.
The blunders made in development are well catalogued, but there have been successes. For example, polio has been eradicated from the Western hemisphere with the help of US aid funding. Smallpox, diphtheria and measles are under control. More people than ever have access to clean drinking water, and infant and child mortality is falling.
The world is in a unique position today to build upon these gains. Economic conditions are favourable; the Cold War is becoming a distant memory; the US is behaving more like a benevolent superpower than in the past; "civil society" is developing in many Third World countries and the UN is reforming itself. But these improvements are fragile. They have to be worked on. Politicians have to be reminded periodically that not all politics is local, and that they have a broader duty to secure a world that is peaceful and just.