Lomborg gives keynote speech to UN

Dr. Lomborg stopped by The New York Times to speak with Nicholas Kristof about the work of the Copenhagen Consensus Center and how to do the most good in the world.

“You can spend your money and do a lot of good many different places but some places you will do just a little good and some places you will do a lot good. Let’s do those places first.”

– Bjorn Lomborg

Many proposals have been made in the past ten years to make Haiti’s public sector more effective. In spite of these efforts, public services remain in a critical state, illustrated by strikes, delays caused by red tape, and difficulties for citizens to do things like getting a passport, registering land, or clearing customs for imported goods. The improvement of public services continues to pose a challenge for Haiti.

There is a way to make the poor of this world $500 billion better off, but this solution is rarely discussed.

This matters, because the international community is gearing up to produce the next set of development goals for 2015-2030, to continue the work of the Millennium Development Goals. $2.5 trillion in development aid plus unknown trillions from national budgets hang in the balance of these goals, so getting our priorities right is vital. Spending money on poorly chosen targets is a wasted opportunity to do much more good elsewhere.