BEST THINGS FIRST PB

In this urgent, thought-provoking book, Bjorn Lomborg presents the 12 most efficient solutions for the world's poorest and our global SDG promises. If you want to make the world better, Best Things First is the book to read.

World leaders have promised everything to everyone. But they are failing. The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals are supposed to be delivered by 2030. The goals literally promise everything, like eradicating poverty, hunger and disease; stopping war and climate change, ending corruption, fixing education along with countless other promises. This year, the world is at halftime for its promises, but nowhere near halfway. Together with more than a hundred of the world’s top economists, Bjorn Lomborg has worked for years to identify the world’s best solutions. Based on 12 new, peer-reviewed papers, forthcoming in Cambridge University Press’ Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, this book highlights the world’s best policies.

Some things are difficult to fix, cost a lot, and help little. Other problems we know how to fix, at low cost, with remarkable outcomes. We should do the smart things first.

Governments and philanthropists should focus on these 12 smartest things. Fix tuberculosis, malaria, and chronic disease, tackle malnutrition, improve education, increase trade, implement e-procurement, and secure land tenure. This will improve the world amazingly. The cost is $35 billion a year. The benefits include saving 4.2 million lives each year and generating $1.1 trillion more for the world’s poor.

We can definitely afford it: The cost of $35 billion is equivalent to the increase in annual global spending on cosmetics over the last two years. This is likely the best thing the world can do this decade.

Dr. Bjorn Lomborg is an academic and the author of the best-selling "The Skeptical Environmentalist" and "Cool It". He challenges mainstream concerns about development and the environment and points out that we need to focus our limited resources and attention on the smartest solutions first. He is a visiting professor at Copenhagen Business School, and president of the Copenhagen Consensus Center which brings together top economists, including seven Nobel Laureates, to set data-driven priorities for the world.

Stephen's review: 'I have consistently found Lomborg, president of the think tank Copenhagen Consensus, to be one of the most helpful voices discussing the worlds challenges, especially the climate debate. In this book he looks at a whole range of challenges that the world faces and proposes 12 pragmatic solutions that would make a significant difference to the world’s poor. Some solutions can only be handled by governments, others can be dealt with by NGO’s and charities. They include dealing with tuberculosis and malaria, providing education and nutrition, attending to maternal and newborn health, putting more R&D into agriculture, immunisation, trade and migration and land tenure security. In each section Lomborg explains how much taking action in these areas will cost and how it will help the world’s poorest people.

As Christians we should be concerned for humanity and especially for the world’s poor people. However, we should not fall into the common trap of merely virtue signalling or jumping on trendy campaigning bandwagons. Real problems require sensible and workable answers. It is here that this book comes into its own. If you really want to help people, especially the global poor, this book suggests practical and affordable solutions that are worth reflecting on. A much more useful route than the idiocy of reactionary groups such as Just Stop Oil.'

Publisher: Copenhagen Consensus Center (7 May 2023)
Language: English
Paperback: 314 pages