[See background posts, ones that I wish I had written on April 26 and May 7.*]
From the inbox (today):
Dear Copenhagen Consensus 2012 authors,
Thank you very much for your participation in Copenhagen Consensus 2012. We greatly enjoyed working with all of the authors. It was a pleasure to meet many of you in Copenhagen last week.
I am writing to provide you with the Copenhagen Consensus 2012 panel’s ‘outcome document’, which reflects the panel's consensus conclusions.
You will note that they chose to not rank (but still highly recommend) some investments, so the list should be considered alongside the commentary they created for each topic.
Here is the CC12 Outcome website that contains the press release and "outcome document." From the press release:
A year-long project involving more than 65 researchers has culminated with a panel of economists including four Nobel laureates identifying the smartest ways to allocate money to respond to ten of the world’s biggest challenges.
The Copenhagen Consensus 2012 Expert Panel finds that fighting malnourishment should be the top priority for policy-makers and philanthropists. Nobel laureate economist Vernon Smith said: “One of the most compelling investments is to get nutrients to the world’s undernourished. The benefits from doing so – in terms of increased health, schooling, and productivity – are tremendous.” ...
The Expert Panel was presented with nearly 40 investment proposals designed by experts to reduce the challenges of Armed Conflict, Biodiversity Destruction, Chronic Disease, Climate Change, Education Shortages, Hunger and Malnutrition, Infectious Disease, Natural Disasters, Population Growth, and Water and Sanitation Shortages.
The economists evaluated how the world could prioritise the spending of $75 billion – a 15% increase on current aid spending – on issues such as chronic and infectious diseases, armed conflict, biodiversity, climate change, hunger and malnutrition, among others. ...
Months ahead of the donor decision on renewing the Global Fund’s Affordable Medicines Facility-malaria financing mechanism, the Nobel laureates find that this mechanism to make combination therapies cheaper for poor countries is a very sound investment. ...
They have also resoundingly endorsed investments to expand childhood immunization coverage, deworm more schoolchildren, and expand Tuberculosis treatment. ...
The expert panel found that geo-engineering research and development, at low cost, was worthy of some funds, to explore the costs, benefits, and risks of this technology. And they concluded that investment in early warning systems in the developing world would save lives and protect economies in the case of natural disasters.
Another sound investment is R&D into agricultural improvements. This would lower food prices and reduce hunger. It would also fight climate change by storing more carbon in forests instead of converting them to crops. And it would add to efforts to protect biodiversity.
[Bjorn] Lomborg said: “The new volume of research produced for Copenhagen Consensus 2012 adds to our knowledge about the smartest ways of responding to humanity’s challenges. And the Nobel laureates’ list shows us there are many smart investments that could help so much of the planet, for very little cost. These are the places that policy-makers and philanthropists should direct their attention.”
Here is the expert panel's proposed allocation of the US$75 billion over four years:
*Note: I had hoped to stay on top of this but my blogging had to take a backseat to directing and grading 13 senior seminar papers. Graduation was yesterday so today I'm trying to fully understand what all I put on the backburner over the past month.
