Bjorn Lomborg

The writer is President of the Copenhagen Consensus Center and Visiting Professor at Copenhagen Business School.

We need better solutions for maternal health

In the next two minutes, one woman will die from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth. She will die from entirely preventable causes during one of the most beautiful moments of human life, giving birth.

3y ago

Prioritising e-government procurement for vision 2021 and beyond

Transparency, fair competition and accountability are three defining features of an efficient public procurement system. Until 2011,

5y ago

Empowering rural courts

Increasing access to justice at the grassroot level can directly protect human rights of the rural poor. It is estimated that nearly 4 billion poor around the world cannot access the protection of the law and justice system.

5y ago

Smart priorities for the new government’s first budget

Since 2015, Copenhagen Consensus and BRAC have collaborated on Bangladesh Priorities to create a bridge between policy and research. This is driven by the belief that, with limited resources and time, it is crucial that decisions are informed by what will do the most good for each taka spent.

5y ago

Four crucial policy interventions to help Bangladesh grow

With input from more than 400 experts from government, international organisations, scholars, and intellectuals, the Bangladesh Priorities project helped identify 76 investments that would help achieve the nation's goals under the 7th Five Year Plan.

6y ago

The moral and economic case for action to end TB

Today [Wednesday, 26 September], Heads of State will meet at the United Nations for their first-ever meeting dedicated to ending Tuberculosis as a public health threat.

6y ago

The youth prioritises agriculture

Discussions about development spending and reducing Bangladesh's climate vulnerability are often dominated—understandably—by politicians and donors. These are the decision-makers who affect how funds are spent.

7y ago

Making the SDGs smarter

Over the next 15 years, the Sustainable Development Goals will influence more than USD 2.5 trillion of money in development aid...

7y ago
June 12, 2016
June 12, 2016

Can they change the country's future?

If you had Tk. 250 billion to use for Bangladesh's future, how would you choose to spend it? That would alter the spending of

June 6, 2016
June 6, 2016

Golden rice: The malnutrition fighting crop

Over the past two decades, Bangladesh has remarkably managed to feed an increasing population better - the UN's Food and Agricultural Organization estimates that in 1993...

June 1, 2016
June 1, 2016

Liberal trade policies to boost the best

With increased liberalisation, there would be costs to domestic producers and markets that become exposed to foreign competition. Some workers in these industries may even lose jobs. The most affected areas of the Bangladeshi economy would be light manufacturing, utilities and construction, livestock and meat markets, and mining and extraction.

May 31, 2016
May 31, 2016

Rejoinder

I refer to the commentary by Dr. Sebastian Groh of Saturday 28 May, responding to my article, "Bringing Electricity to More Bangladeshis".

May 30, 2016
May 30, 2016

RMG: Smartest Strategies

Bangladesh's manufacturing sector has grown steadily as the country has industrialised. Manufacturing now accounts for 30 percent of GDP, nearly double the share of agriculture.

May 25, 2016
May 25, 2016

Bringing electricity to more Bangladeshis

It turns out that switching five households from kerosene lamps to a single diesel-powered generator would be 12 times more cost-effective than solar power - each taka of spending would do an impressive 24 takas of good.

May 18, 2016
May 18, 2016

Best strategies to empower girls

In Bangladesh, an additional year of school boosts girls' lifetime earnings by an estimated 13.2 percent. When combining the health and education benefits, the small investment in family planning gives 3 takas of benefits for each taka spent.

May 16, 2016
May 16, 2016

Healthier mothers for a brighter future

Providing all pregnant Bangladeshi women with iron and folic acid would decrease the risk of anaemia in mothers by 69 percent and reduce low-weight births by nearly 3 percent. The majority of the benefits would come from avoiding lifelong productivity losses that arise from low birth weight.

May 11, 2016
May 11, 2016

How to improve Dhaka's public services for future growth

Cleaning the river and improving its facilities would make it safer for residents who live nearby, avoiding a massive Tk. 91.6 billion in healthcare costs.

May 9, 2016
May 9, 2016

The smartest ways to deal with traffic congestion in Dhaka

Dhaka is one of the fastest-growing megacities in the world. A population of just 3 million in 1971 has ballooned to 18 million today.