How to Spend $75 Billion on Global Welfare

The Copenhagen Consensus Center, an organization created by the Copenhagen Business School in 2006, is working to solve the world's biggest problems. Their latest project, funded by The Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, brought together experts for Copenhagen Consensus 2008. This project set out to find solutions to 10 of the world's most pressing concerns: Air Pollution, Conflicts, Diseases, Education, Global Warming, Malnutrition and Hunger, Sanitation and Water, Subsidies and Trade Barriers, Terrorism, Women and Development.

The panel had to answer one basic question when considering solutions for each of the challenges: "What would be the best ways of advancing global welfare... [with] an additional $75 billion of resources... over a four-year initial period?"

These were some of the solutions the panel discussed:

Malnutrition and Hunger
Supplementation of Vitamin A and Zinc, iron and salt iodization fortification, agricultural improvements, de‐worming of school aged children, and nutritional education campaigns.

Trade and Subsidies
An outcome to the Doha international trade round, increase migration into high‐income countries to boost their labor force, and address political barriers to trade reform.

Diseases
Increasing tuberculosis identification and treatment, using inexpensive drugs to treat acute heart disease in developing countries, fighting malaria with nets and DDT along with finding new treatments, expanding immunizations and micronutrients in developing countries, tobacco taxes in developing nations, a wide approach to preventing and treating HIV/AIDS, and hospital investing.

Education
Solutions focused on children who have dropped out of school: raising school attendance with nutritional supplements or treatments for intestinal parasites, reducing the cost of schooling, and giving out cash payments to parents for their children's regular school attendance.

Women and Development
Addressing girls' schooling, spotlighting women's reproductive role, providing microfinancing to poor women, and setting up affirmative action practices.

Global Warming
Investing in mitigation along with research and development into low‐carbon energy technology; Simply cutting CO2 emissions is the least cost effective use of resources.

Sanitation and Water
Improving access to clean drinking water and sanitation: setting up rural water supply programs for poor communities in Africa; introducing disease transmission, health costs, and sanitation benefits awareness campaigns; providing access to technology to remove contaminants in raw water supplies; building new reservoirs in some parts of Africa.

Conflict
Reducing conflict after civil war: linking aid to military spending limits, sending military into nations emerging from conflict to reduce the risk of a relapse; assuring military intervention when violence threatens a democratically elected government.

Air Pollution
Solutions to indoor and outdoor air pollution: providing chimneyless rocket stoves, switching to diesel and gasoline for urban vehicles; retrofitting buses and delivery trucks with pollution reducing filters; and exhaust emission limits for diesel vehicles.

Terrorism
No terrorism challenge proposals were accepted since there was not sufficient evidence regarding the proposed options.

Conclusions
After prioritizing all of the proposals, the panel found that 13 of their solutions were cost effective enough to fit the funding estimates. The most cost effective solutions were:

Increase and improve girls' schooling ($6,000 million), lowering the price of schooling ($5,400 million), provide support for women's reproductive role ($4,000 million), immunization coverage for children ($1,000 million), community‐based nutrition promotion ($798 million), malaria prevention and treatment ($500 million), tuberculosis case finding and treatment ($419 million), micronutrient fortification ($286 million), heart attack acute management ($200 million), micronutrient supplements for children ($60 million), biofortification ($60 million), de-worming and other nutrition programs at school ($27 million), and the Doha development agenda ($0).

The CCC is hoping these proposals will help set clear priorities for worldwide funding policies with organizations such as the United Nations.