PHA-Exchange> The Copenhagen Consensus Project

Tue May 25 23:55:27 PDT 2004

from "Ruggiero, Mrs. Ana Lucia (WDC)" <ruglucia at PAHO.ORG> -----

<http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=2478902> The

Copenhagen Consensus project

Organised by Denmark's Environmental Assessment Institute with the
co-operation of The Economist, aims to consider and to establish
priorities among a series of proposals for advancing global welfare. 

May 2004 - http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com
<http://www.copenhagenconsensus.com/Files/Filer/CC/Papers/Hunger_and_Mal
nutrition_070504.pdf> 

Governments have limited resources for addressing the world's economic
challenges. What should come first?

"........Policymakers face enormous demands on their aid budgets-and on
their intellectual and political capital as well-when they try to
confront the many daunting challenges of economic development and
underdevelopment. Climate change, war, disease, financial instability
and more all clamour for attention, and for remedies or palliatives that
cost money. Given that resources are limited, the question is this: What
should come first? Where, among all the projects that governments might
undertake to make the world a better place, are the net returns to their
efforts likely to be greatest?

First, Denmark's Environmental Assessment Institute assembled a panel of
nine of the world's most distinguished economists. Four of them are
Nobel laureates: Robert Fogel and James Heckman, both of the University
of Chicago; Douglass North of Washington University, St. Louis; and
Vernon Smith of George Mason University. 

The other five can expect to pick up a few more Nobels between them in
due course: Jagdish Bhagwati of Columbia University; Bruno Frey of the
University of Zurich; Justin Yifu Lin of Beijing University; Thomas
Schelling of the University of Maryland; and Nancy Stokey of the
University of Chicago. This panel met in Copenhagen in May to establish
priorities for action on ten issues.

The panel chose these issues from a much longer list drafted by the
institute, drawn in turn from aims identified in various contexts by the
United Nations and other international bodies. Then a series of
distinguished experts in each field was commissioned to write a review
paper on each issue and on actions that might feasibly be taken in
response, with due emphasis on costs and benefits. The topics and
principal authors are:

* Climate change, by William Cline of the Centre for Global Development.
* Communicable diseases, by Anne Mills of the London School of Hygiene &
Tropical Medicine.
* Armed conflicts, by Paul Collier of Oxford University. 
* Education, by Lant Pritchett of the Kennedy School.
* Financial instability, by Barry Eichengreen of the University of
California, Berkeley.
* Governance and corruption, by Susan Rose-Ackerman of Yale University.
* Malnutrition and hunger, by Jere Behrman of the University of
Pennsylvania.
* Population and migration, by Philip Martin of the University of
California, Davis.
* Sanitation and water, by Michael Hanemann of the University of
California, Berkeley.
* Subsidies and trade barriers, by Kym Anderson of the University of
Adelaide

Each paper was subject to critique by two further experts

Articles about the Copenhagen Consensus published in The Economist
include: 

A remedy for financial turbulence?
<http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=2597313>  (April
15th 2004)
The price of peace
<http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=2610959>  (April
22nd 2004)
Climate change
<http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=2628764>  (April
29th 2004)
Feeding the hungry
<http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=2647369>  (May 6th
2004)
Water and sanitation
<http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=2668363>  (May 13th
2004)

In addition to these, the Economist are posting further articles which
discuss the Copenhagen Consensus proposals:

Curbing disease
<http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=2595964>  (April
15th 2004)
The learning deficit
<http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=2610574>  (April
22nd 2004)
Fighting corruption
<http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=2643440>  (April
29th 2004)
Migration and development
<http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=2608019>  (May 6th
2004)
Trade and development
<http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=2680943>  (May 13th
2004)

 The initiative was described in the Economics focus of March 6th
<http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=2592716> . A book,
"Global Crises, Global Solutions
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0521606144/theeconomist>
" (Amazon.co.uk
<http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0521606144/theeconomist02> ),
containing the full set of papers written for the project is forthcoming
from Cambridge University Press.

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