Debate: How Can We Do the Most Good?

The world indeed has many problems and we can't seem to solve them all... not even close. So what do we do?

Danish academic, Bjorn Lomborg, argues that we need to prioritize and figure out where can we get "the most bang for our buck." In May 2004, he gathered some of the world's top economists in Copenhagen to come up with a list of spending priorities for the international community. The result? The economists concluded that money should be spent in the following four areas first:

• HIV/AIDS prevention (especially in sub-Saharan Africa)
• Micronutrients - fight hunger and malnutrition (especially iron-deficiency) by providing food supplements
• Trade reform - increase free trade
• Malaria - control and treat malaria

The panel also recommended that we should spend less money on other problems, and this is where things get tricky. Low on their priority list are issues such as climate change.

Is Lomborg right? Should we rank the world's problems using a cost-benefit analysis?

By the way, there was a separate youth forum at the Copenhagen Consensus and they came up with completely different list:

• Malnutrition and Hunger
  
• Communicable Disease
• Governance and Corruption
• Education

Hear Bjorn Lomborg make his case in this radio interview with the CBC program, The Current.

What do you think our priorities are? Discuss in the forum. Discuss.