COPENHAGEN –
This decade has seen remarkable progress against humanity’s greatest
challenges. Consider the declaration of victory over polio in India,
which seemed impossible ten years ago. January marked one year since the
country’s last reported case. Or look at the strides made against malaria: over
the past decade, the number of cases has been reduced by 17%, and the number of
deaths has dropped by 26%.
Just a few years ago, the use of male
circumcision as a tool in the fight against HIV/AIDS was largely unknown.
Today, UNAIDS and the World Health Organization recommend it as a means to combat
HIV/AIDS, and more than ten African countries are implementing strategies to
increase its availability. Similarly, the concept of using geo-engineering to
respond to climate change has moved from science fiction to an area of serious
research.
This decade has also witnessed a 60%
increase in global development aid. Bill Gates’s Giving Pledge challenge has
graduated from concept to campaign, with at least $125 billion promised to good
causes.
But, while the last decade has given
much reason for cheer, there are areas in which we cannot claim such success. Climate change has emerged as one of the
most talked-about problems, yet global negotiations have fallen apart, and we
are barely any closer to cutting carbon emissions than we were ten years ago.
Similarly, violent conflicts continue
to take a toll that is far too high. And, while the world met the Millennium
Development Goal for providing clean drinking water five years early, the
provision of sanitation has fallen behind: an astonishing one-third of the
world’s population, 2.5 billion people, lack access to basic sanitation, and
more than one billion people defecate in the open.
Other problems have emerged and grown
over the decade. If current patterns continue, tobacco use may account for some 10 million deaths per year by 2030, with
most occurring in low- and middle-income countries: we might see roughly one
billion tobacco-related deaths in this century, compared to 100 million in the
twentieth century. Cardiovascular diseases account for 13 million deaths in
low- and middle-income countries each year, more than a quarter of the entire
death toll, and risk factors are growing.
The state of challenges facing
humanity changes rapidly. So does our knowledge of how best to respond.
Policymakers and philanthropists need access to regularly updated information
on how to use limited funds effectively.
The Copenhagen Consensus project,
which I direct, provides a link between academic research and concrete economic
analysis that can be used by decision-makers in the real world. Every four
years, researchers and Nobel laureates work to identify the smartest responses
to the biggest problems facing humanity.
In 2004, the Copenhagen Consensus
highlighted the need to prioritize measures to control and treat HIV/AIDS. More
money and attention was soon devoted to HIV prevention and treatment. In 2008,
the Copenhagen Consensus focused the attention of policymakers and
philanthropists on investments in micronutrient provision. Public acceptance of
this idea led to an increase in efforts to reduce “hidden hunger” – that is,
people suffering from not getting the nutrients that they need.
This May, more than 30 Nobel laureates
and researchers will work together once again to identify the smartest ways to
respond to global challenges, based on the latest information about the
toughest problems facing our world.
Since 2008, the global economic crisis
has made it even more necessary to ensure that development and aid spending is
used wisely, where it can make the biggest difference. The Copenhagen Consensus
project carries out the difficult task of comparing one set of initiatives with
another by using fundamental economic tools and principles.
First, teams of world-renowned expert
economists write research papers on the costs and benefits of a range of
investments that address specific challenges. Debate and discussion is
encouraged by ensuring that three papers are written for each topic, so that a
range of expert opinions is available.
This provides a framework with which
we can see the full price tag, incorporating all of the costs, benefits, and
spin-offs to society from using a limited amount of money in a particular way.
All of this research constitutes a
valuable contribution to international development and aid policy. But the
project goes a step further. A panel of the world’s top economists – including
four Nobel laureates – test and debate the experts’ recommendations, and
identify the most attractive possibilities. Alongside the research papers, the Nobel
laureates’ prioritized list provides an important input for policymakers and
philanthropists.
While the past decade has witnessed
much progress and reason for hope, there are still many important problems to
tackle: malnutrition, sanitation, education, civil conflicts, climate change,
and natural disasters, to name some of the most prominent.
But are the most prominent problems
necessarily those that we should address immediately? The research and the
prioritized list make us consider the reasons for our current priorities, and
challenge us to spend limited resources to do the most good first. And what are
the best things to do first? We find out in May.
Bjørn Lomborg is an adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School, where he founded and directs its Copenhagen
Consensus Center, which seeks to study environmental problems and solutions
using the best available analytical methods. He is the author of the
bestselling book The Skeptical
Environmentalist and Cool It,
the basis of an eponymous documentary film.