The list of urgent challenges facing humanity is depressingly long. AIDS, hunger, armed conflict and global warming compete for attention alongside government failure, malaria and the latest natural disaster. While our compassion is great, our resources are limited. So who should be helped first?
To some, making such priorities seems obscene. But the UN and national governments spend billions of dollars each year trying to help those in need without explicitly considering whether they are achieving the most that they can.
The Western media focuses on a tsunami in the Indian ocean; donations flow freely. An earthquake that devastates Pakistan garners fewer headlines, so the developed world gives a lot less.
There is a better way. We could prioritize our spending to achieve the greatest benefit for our money. This month, I will ask UN ambassadors how they would spend US$50 billion to reduce suffering. They will repeat the same exercise that some of the world's best economists tackled in a 2004 project called the "Copenhagen Consensus" -- weighing up solutions to the great challenges facing the world and deciding what should be done first.
But the question shouldn't be left to politicians or Nobel laureates alone. We must all engage in the debate. One hopes that this task has been made slightly simpler by the publication of a book in which the Copenhagen Consensus economists boil down their insights.
Here's one fact to consider: the entire death toll from the South-east Asian tsunami is matched each month by the number of worldwide casualties of AIDS. A comprehensive prevention program providing free or cheap condoms and information about safe sex to the regions worst affected by AIDS would cost US$27 billion and save more than 28 million lives. This, say the economists who took part in the Copenhagen Consensus, makes it the single best investment that the world could possibly make. The social benefits would outweigh the costs by 40 to one.
Other options that the economists favored spending some of their US$50 billion include providing micro-nutrients to the world's hungry, establishing free trade and battling malaria with mosquito nets and medication. At the other end of the scale, responses to climate change like the Kyoto Protocol would cost more than they would achieve, so the economists crossed them off the list of things to do right now.
Regardless of whether we agree with the economists, everybody must admit that we cannot do everything at once. Discussing our priorities is crucial. Often, politicians avoid prioritization. Why? The glib answer is because it is hard. There are many interested parties. No group wants their solution to come last and no government wants its country's national challenges to be overlooked.
The UN conference won't be easy. But it shows that there is a will to put prioritization squarely at the center of attention. It will produce a "to do" list that will demonstrate how to achieve the most that we can for humanity, which could lead, in turn, to more transparent decision-making.
The principles of economics provide a sound basis on which to make rational choices. Now, the discussion needs to shift from the academic sphere to political life. It's time for all of us to consider and compare our own priority lists.
We must endeavor to shorten the list of challenges facing humanity. But that requires all of us to engage in a debate about what we need to do first.
Bjorn Lomborg is the organizer of Copenhagen Consensus, adjunct professor at Copenhagen Business School and editor of the new book How to spend $50 billion to make the world a better place.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
As strategic tensions escalate across the vast Indo-Pacific region, Taiwan has emerged as more than a potential flashpoint. It is the fulcrum upon which the credibility of the evolving American-led strategy of integrated deterrence now rests. How the US and regional powers like Japan respond to Taiwan’s defense, and how credible the deterrent against Chinese aggression proves to be, will profoundly shape the Indo-Pacific security architecture for years to come. A successful defense of Taiwan through strengthened deterrence in the Indo-Pacific would enhance the credibility of the US-led alliance system and underpin America’s global preeminence, while a failure of integrated deterrence would
The Executive Yuan recently revised a page of its Web site on ethnic groups in Taiwan, replacing the term “Han” (漢族) with “the rest of the population.” The page, which was updated on March 24, describes the composition of Taiwan’s registered households as indigenous (2.5 percent), foreign origin (1.2 percent) and the rest of the population (96.2 percent). The change was picked up by a social media user and amplified by local media, sparking heated discussion over the weekend. The pan-blue and pro-China camp called it a politically motivated desinicization attempt to obscure the Han Chinese ethnicity of most Taiwanese.
On Wednesday last week, the Rossiyskaya Gazeta published an article by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) asserting the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) territorial claim over Taiwan effective 1945, predicated upon instruments such as the 1943 Cairo Declaration and the 1945 Potsdam Proclamation. The article further contended that this de jure and de facto status was subsequently reaffirmed by UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 of 1971. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs promptly issued a statement categorically repudiating these assertions. In addition to the reasons put forward by the ministry, I believe that China’s assertions are open to questions in international
The Legislative Yuan passed an amendment on Friday last week to add four national holidays and make Workers’ Day a national holiday for all sectors — a move referred to as “four plus one.” The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), who used their combined legislative majority to push the bill through its third reading, claim the holidays were chosen based on their inherent significance and social relevance. However, in passing the amendment, they have stuck to the traditional mindset of taking a holiday just for the sake of it, failing to make good use of
RSS