Prioritizing Goals
In their annual letter at the beginning of this year, Bill and Melinda Gates wrote that, “The lives of people in poor countries will improve faster in the next 15 years than at any other time in history. And their lives will improve more than anyone else’s". They went on, citing expectations regarding infant mortality rates (dropping by half), polio and some other deadly diseases (being eradicated), agriculture (Africa achieving food self-sufficiency), individual financial security (spurred by the use of mobile devices to open first-time bank accounts), and a jump in educational opportunities for boys and especially girls (accessing inexpensive on-line courses, again with mobile devices).
The Gateses have stepped forward with their considerable personal resources to help bring such predictions to fruition. And in a broader context this past September, world leaders agreed to a United Nations' initiative establishing a set of seventeen "Sustainable Development Goals" (SDGs) for 2030 (replacing their previous eight Millennium Development Goals), covering everything from climate change, to clean water and sanitation, to inequality.
Ban Ki-Moon, the UN secretary-general, is a big fan of the sweeping proposals, including all of the 169 sub-targets associated with the 17 SDGs. Others, no less committed, nonetheless feel that focus is required if further progress is to be made over the next 15 years. Notable among the latter is Bjorn Lomborg, a Danish economist, who a decade ago established the Copenhagen Consensus. According to Lomborg, "having 169 targets is like having no targets at all". Now assessing the best (cheapest) ways to utilize the $2.5 trillion in international development assistance expected over the years to 2030, his Post-2015 Consensus has assembled no less than 60 teams of economists, plus representatives from the UN, NGOs and the private sector, to evaluate the UN SDGs, so as to produce a short list of targets with the biggest bang for the buck. Here's an example: to lower deaths from air pollution, which kills an estimated 7 million people a year, shifting 1.4 billion people from traditional cooking methods to stoves with outdoor vents could save half a million lives each year, an economic benefit to the world of $10 for every $1 spent. Using entirely smoke-free stoves would lead to an even larger drop in deaths, but at a much higher cost, generating a benefit of only $2 per dollar spent.
To this writer (who has advocated the benefits of free international trade ever since studying Ricardo, Smith, and Mill at the University of Strathclyde), perhaps the most interesting finding from Lomborg's group is that lowering barriers to trade would achieve, by far, the highest per dollar benefit ($2,011) of all the UN goals (see chart). Accordingly, Lomborg argues for new emphasis on completing the treaty currently being negotiated at the World Trade Organization, as well as the the free-trade deal involving China, Japan, South Korea and the ASEAN countries. Next, and well down, on the biggest-benefit list is providing contraception and other reproductive-health services, costing some $3.6 billion yet producing a benefit worth $432 billion annually, or $120 per dollar spent. Stopping tax evasion (which costs 20 sub-Saharan governments about 10% of GDP annually) would also be effective, at $49 per dollar spent. On the other hand, for example, the UN's call for "data for development" as part of the SDG process would be very expensive, at some $1.5 billion per SDG target, that is, $253 billion for all 169 targets, over 10% of total international aid. And so goes the prioritizing....
The year 2015 is regarded as a milestone, as it marks, on the one hand, the end of the 15-year time frame during which the world has been guided by the eight Millennium Development Goals, and on the other hand, the beginning of a new development agenda known as the sustainable development goals (SDGs). In launching these new goals, Ban Ki-Moon noted the world is presented with a "once-in-a-generation opportunity to advance prosperity, secure the planet's sustainability for future generations, and unlock resources for investments in education, health, equitable growth and sustainable production and consumption". The trick will be to turn such aspirations into practical steps and strategies. Commitment - and focus - will be required.