The big challenges that confront humanity are well-established. Conflict, communicable diseases, hunger and malnutrition pose an ongoing threat. Developed countries attempt to respond through the United Nations apparatus and aid spending. Each challenge comes with a range of solutions or ways to ameliorate the problem; each solution has its own price tag.

The question the developed world has never really addressed is this: With limited resources, which solutions to which challenges should be at the top of the list of priorities?

Too often, important funding decisions are swayed by rapidly changing media images of the latest catastrophe or tragedy. Prioritisation occurs implicitly because no dollar can be spent twice.

If an overcrowded emergency ward gave up the practice of triage, the human cost would quickly mount. The same occurs when we fail to use a rational basis to decide how to spend money to improve living conditions for the world's most disadvantaged.

Prioritisation is certainly a complicated task. Some claim it is impossible to judge between such things as a malaria vaccine and anti-corruption policies. Yet politicians set such priorities every day when they choose between increasing the health budget and improving crime prevention.

Some think that we should do everything. We should win the war against hunger and malnutrition, end conflicts and stamp out corruption, and also halt climate change. But we do not live in a world with the resources and political will to achieve everything.

Prioritisation is necessary – and it can be done. Last month the Copenhagen Consensus project brought together eight world-class economists – including three Nobel Laureates – to rank solutions to 10 great problems facing humanity. Their task, set by the Danish Environmental Assessment Institute and The Economist magazine, was to answer the question: If the world had US $50 billion extra to spend achieving good in the world, where could that money best be spent?

The architect of Copenhagen Consensus was ‘Skeptical Environmentalist' Bjorn Lomborg , who came to New Zealand as a guest of the Business Roundtable in 2003. The Business Roundtable's communications advisor took leave of absence to work in Denmark as media liaison officer for the project. Lomborg's group spent a week hearing evidence on the challenges from 30 specialist scholars. They looked primarily at the numbers, establishing hard-headed economic priorities. If 50 million lives could be saved in one area for $5 billion, then logic would dictate that it should be done before spending $10 billion to do comparatively little elsewhere.

At the end of the week, the economists announced their results. At the top of their list was an HIV/AIDS prevention package. This would cost US $27 billion, but would have benefits almost forty times as high. As expert panellist Bruno Frey put it, "fighting disease is a good investment". Money spent controlling and treating HIV/AIDS would yield extraordinarily high benefits. Furthermore, the scale and urgency of the problem are extreme, especially in Africa where entire societies are threatened with collapse.

Other opportunities rated by the economists as “very good” were providing micronutrients to areas suffering from malnutrition, liberalising trade, and ameliorating malaria in disease-prone regions.

“Free trade will benefit both rich and poor countries”, expert panellist Nobel Laureate Robert Fogel said. “Eliminating trade barriers does not require a big investment to produce a large return. Here, we need political will – and the return will be huge. The entire world's economy will benefit from free trade, and more wealth will mean that we can afford to solve more of the world's greatest challenges”.

If Copenhagen Consensus showed developed nations what they should be doing, it also highlighted approaches that should not be immediate priorities for extra spending. The experts rated responses to climate change extremely low on the ‘to do' list. In fact, they called these ventures – including the Kyoto Protocol – “bad projects”. Expert panellist Vernon Smith said, "the environment is very important, but it's too early to be concerned with climate change. Action now is not essential as it is with AIDS, malaria and hunger”.

Copenhagen Consensus also helped establish areas which require more research. The expert panel considered it impossible to prioritise responses to the challenges of conflict, financial instability and a lack of education because hard data on which solutions work is not available. Filling that information gap should be high on the short-term research agenda.

Throughout the week of Copenhagen Consensus activities, critics continued to denounce the economists' “tunnel vision”. The criticism is flawed. A focus on costs and effects does not result simply in a cold-hearted view framed by dollar signs. Instead, it helps focus minds on the fact that resources are limited, and that explicit prioritisation is necessary in order to do the most good possible.

Roger Kerr is the executive director of the New Zealand Business Roundtable. See www.nzbr.org.nz

For more information, contact:

Roger Kerr
Executive Director
Ph: 04 499 0790
Email: rkerr@nzbr.org.nz

David Young
Communications Advisor
Ph: 04 499 0790
Email: dyoung@nzbr.org.nz

Web: www.nzbr.org.nz