Innovations in measuring progress will be crucial to advances in global health, education, poverty, and other major problems, billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates writes in a Wall Street Journal essay.

As new ways to measure energy output paved the way to building better engines in the industrial age, charting the impact of immunizations in Africa or teacher-evaluation systems in America will drive progress in health and education make innovation and improvement “commonplace,” Mr. Gates says.

“An innovation—whether it’s a new vaccine or an improved seed—can’t have an impact unless it reaches the people who will benefit from it,” he writes. “We need innovations in measurement to find new, effective ways to deliver those tools and services to the clinics, family farms, and classrooms that need them.”