WSJ: The Copenhagen Solution -- Lomborg's cost-benefit approach to prioritizing world programs

Wall Street Journal ^ | June 8, 2005 | Editorial

[OESY]

...The British Prime Minister wants President Bush to commit the U.S. to billions in debt relief to the world's poorest countries through a mechanism called the International Finance Facility, which the Administration rightfully considers a nonstarter. Mr. Blair also wants the U.S. to sign on to his views on global warming....

Instead, what Mr. Blair mainly got was a commitment from the Administration to release another $674 million in humanitarian relief -- most of it food aid -- for Africa, above the $3.2 billion per year it already provides....

[T]he brainchild of Danish statistician Bjorn Lomborg, the [Copenhagen] Consensus is an attempt by leading economists (including three Nobelists) to set priorities for spending on development using traditional cost-benefit analysis. "We need to know what we should do first," says Mr. Lomborg. "Not being willing to prioritize does not make the problem go away: It simply becomes less clear -- and, most likely, more expensive to solve in the end."

To that end, Mr. Lomborg and his colleagues looked at more than a dozen development challenges, ranging from malnutrition to water sanitation to migration to climate change. The results: Development dollars are best spent on the control of HIV-AIDS, principally through condom distribution and information efforts, followed by providing micronutrients (vitamin and mineral pills) to the malnourished, lowering barriers to trade, and controlling malaria. Taking action in these areas, the authors believe, could do the most good for the greatest number of people in the shortest span of time.

...[T]he three projects the Consensus put at the bottom of the list all had to do with... of global warming. Adopting the Kyoto... comes with a price tag of about $94 trillion....

[T]he world's would-be benefactors have a responsibility to think through the consequences of how their taxpayers' money is spent.

[OESY]

[Fredgoblu]

Ahhh...cost-benefit discussion...this could be fun.

The Aids/Condom program has a real kicker of a benefit in this analysis...but don't tell anybody this dirty little secret. On top of saving lives, and minimizing health care costs, it's the only program on this list that helps to minimize the number of poor people in the first place.

Birth control ain't a politically correct program to endorse, but condoms to fight AIDS is okay.

I always liked Sam Kinison's take on "food aid to Africa". He argued that we should be sending suitcases instead of food: "We've got deserts over here, but we don't live in them."

[PeoplesRepublicOfWashington]

In general, the list shows that traditionally conservative programs are of more benefit than traditionally liberal programs. Interesting, but not surprising.