COPENHAGEN, Denmark — The United Nations Millennium Development Goals expire in 2015, and U.N. committees are working on setting new goals for 2030 to build on the successes of the first ones. However, thousands of goals have been proposed, and the world has a limited budget.
How can the U.N. best set its new agenda so aid dollars do the most good possible? The Copenhagen Consensus Center, a think tank with members from around the world, is researching the costs and benefits of each proposal to find how to do the most good with MDGs.
By calculating dollar values of benefits like productivity, environmental protection and societal welfare, CCC has evaluated a recent plan from one committee, the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development. The researchers looked benefit-to-cost ratios of each proposal and noted which were most and least effective. Below are their results in various goal categories.
1. Hunger and Malnutrition
The Copenhagen Consensus Center found that combating child malnutrition was an extremely effective way to use development money, with every dollar spent leading to about $59 in benefits. Since children need proper nutrition to develop their bodies and brains, providing them with nutritious food will help them learn better and become more productive workers later in life.
Other food policies, such as supporting small farmers, have benefits at least five times as high as costs, but none are as effective as reducing malnutrition. Methods like finding environmentally sustainable ways to farm and increasing emergency food stores, while helpful, have costs higher than benefits.
2. Diseases and Medical Care
Tuberculosis and malaria, which are curable but affect millions worldwide, are the most cost-effective diseases to treat; the CCC estimates that each dollar spent can lead to $35 in returns. However, the high returns diminish after reducing deaths by 95 percent. Trying to eliminate the diseases entirely makes costs ultimately higher than benefits.
Another effective way to improve health around the world is to provide universal reproductive health care, which would keep women and children healthier and more productive. Universal sexual health access alone has a benefit-to-cost ratio of 150 to one. This plan could be added to a goal of universal healthcare, which was also found to be cost-effective.
3. Education
Increasing early development education programs is a low-cost way to make children more economically productive members of society; researchers estimate that the benefit-to-cost ratio could be as high as 30 to one. Increasing the availability of these programs along with primary education to girls in particular could lead to even greater benefits.
Nevertheless, not all education is cost-effective. College education and other tertiary school programs, along with engineering and environmental sustainability training, all have costs higher than benefits to the poor. This is because most families who send their children to tertiary schools are already rich; poorer families tend to have their children enter the workforce earlier.
The first MDGs were a resounding success. Not only will the number of people living in extreme poverty be half of what it was in 2000 by 2015, but primary education will also be available to much of the world’s population and work to fight HIV/AIDS will save millions of lives.
In planning a second set of goals, the U.N. has the opportunity to do even more to fight poverty and improve the quality of life for all. Work by groups like the Copenhagen Consensus Center is vital for determining how the world can do the most good, and leaders would be wise to consider benefit-to-cost ratios when setting agendas that could change the world for the better.
– Ted Rappleye
Sources: The Wall Street Journal, Copenhagen Consensus Center, UN
Photo: UIB