In 2015, the UN’s Millennium Development Goals are expiring and the international community will set new goals. The Post-2015 Consensus brings together the world’s top economists, NGOs, international agencies and businesses to identify the goals with the greatest benefit-to-cost ratio for the next development agenda.
The Copenhagen Consensus Center interviewed 32 of the world’s top economists to assess each of the 1000+ goals submitted. Each goal was then rated based on the expected benefit-to-cost ratio: evidence for benefits more than 15x higher than costs were considered Phenomenal.
This study is particularly fascinating because it highlights what economists deem as the developmental contributions with the highest return on investment.
Below are some examples of Phenomenal goals and Poor goals.
By 2030 ensure universal access to sexual and reproductive health care services, including for family planning, information and education, and the integration of reproductive health into national strategies and programmes
Rating: PHENOMENAL – Robust evidence for benefits more than 15 times higher than costs
Explanation for rating: Family planning interventions are inexpensive with clear benefits. Kohler, 2012 shows that this has a very high BCR ($150 back on every dollar).
By 2030, expand international cooperation and capacity-building support to developing countries in water and sanitation related activities and programmes, including water harvesting, desalination, water efficiency, wastewater treatment, recycling and reuse technologies.
Rating: PHENOMENAL – Robust evidence for benefits more than 15 times higher than costs
Explanation for rating: International cooperation on water related technology has been occurring for many years and there is growing international recognition of the importance of distributing WASH technologies. The costs of cooperation are low and the benefits tangible and much larger than costs. For example, municipalities from all over the world have been sharing technologies on how to treat and extract water and energy from fecal sludge, which, with the use of private sector capital and involvement, has provided large
resource benefits.
By 2030 ensure equal access for all women and men to affordable quality technical, vocational and tertiary education, including university.
Rating: POOR – The benefits are smaller than costs or target poorly specified.
Explanation for rating: Literature suggests that vocational training does not provide large benefits relative to costs (Psacharopoulous, 2014). For tertiary education we have plenty of evidence that in all countries the poor pay for the higher education of the rich. This because the rich send more of their children to higher education relative to the taxes paid by the two groups. The solution is to introduce tuition fees for the rich and scholarships for the poor.
By 2030 increase substantially the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix.
Rating: POOR – The benefits are smaller than costs or target poorly specified.
Explanation for rating: The costs to achieve this will be large and the impact on climate change will be very small, especially since total global energy consumption will increase in the future (increase in denominator).
Subsidies, and other inducements such as feed-in-tariffs (FITs) and renewable portfolio standards (RPSs), have been shown to be extremely cost ineffective and have not impacted emissions as hoped.
I hope you’ve read enough to be interested in the goals and the analysis. Continue reading for the full story and links to the reports.
3-minute video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5BDIBRwQ88
UN’s Millennium Development Goals
“In 2015, the UN’s Millennium Development Goals are expiring and the international community will set new goals.The next development goals are extremely important. They will drive priorities and influence up to $700bn in foreign aid over 15 years. This opportunity has energized the international community to set a vision that will make the world better by 2030. The level of engagement is incredible – at the moment, there are more than a thousand proposed goals for the next development agenda!
But which ones should we choose? How do we even begin to prioritize all these suggestions? Which ones can we realistically achieve in the shortest time, with the fewest inputs, and which will do the most good?
The Post-2015 Consensus brings together the world’s top economists, NGOs, international agencies and businesses to identify the goals with the greatest benefit-to-cost ratio for the next development agenda. We’ll take this information to the top decision makers – UN missions and governments — to make sure the next goals are based on clear evidence of what will do the most good by 2030.
We all want a better future, so it’s important we focus on the goals that are the most effective. Just think, if we could replace a goal that saves one life for every $500,000, with a goal that saves 10 lives for the same amount, how much more good we could do over the next 15 years!
We have a once-in-a-generation chance to set a vision for the future. Let’s make the most of it.
Learn more at http://www.post2015consensus.com”
Preliminary Benefit-Cost Assessment of Final ‘Open Working Group’ Targets
“This report assesses the targets in the OWG’s Final Outcome Document from 19 July 2014.
The assessments were put together by interviewing 32 of the world’s top economists in their respective fields. The benefits and costs do NOT solely reflect money. In line with standard welfare economics principles, all benefits and costs have been considered (such as improved health and improved environmental impacts) – which have subsequently been converted into a dollar value.”
The key for assessments are:
PHENOMENAL – Robust evidence for benefits more than 15 times higher than costs
GOOD – Robust evidence of benefits between 5 to 15 times higher than costs
FAIR – Robust evidence of benefits between 1 to 5 times higher than costs
POOR – The benefits are smaller than costs or target poorly specified (e.g. internally inconsistent, incentivizes wrong activity)
UNCERTAIN – There is not enough knowledge of the policy options that could reach the target OR the costs and benefits of the actions to reach the target are not well known.
Full PDF of Report, Goals, and Assessments:
http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/publication/preliminary-benefit-cost-assessment-final-owg-targets
Learn more at http://www.post2015consensus.com