The dawn of 2026 presents a sobering reality for international development. With geopolitical strife, economic pressures, and slashed aid budgets, the ambitious promise of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has faltered. According to the 2025 progress report, a mere 18 per cent of the 169 UN targets are on track, with one-third stalled or regressing.
A World of Competing Crises
The year 2025 was dominated by urgent news that overshadowed chronic development challenges. Russia's war in Ukraine continued to inflate global food and fertiliser prices, while conflicts in the Middle East and Sudan displaced millions. Developing nations, crippled by ballooning debt costs, found it increasingly difficult to fund essential health and education services.
Simultaneously, wealthy countries grappling with their own inflation and deficits have sharply reduced foreign assistance. After a 9 per cent drop in 2024, aid is projected to fall by another 9-17 per cent in 2025, potentially cutting support for the world's poorest nations by a quarter. Compounding the issue, major development organisations now divert over $85 billion annually towards climate projects, further straining resources for basic human needs.
Focusing on What Works
In this harsh fiscal climate, Bjorn Lomborg, President of the Copenhagen Consensus and a Visiting Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, argues for a radical shift in strategy. His think tank, working with over a hundred top economists and Nobel laureates, has identified a dozen phenomenally effective policies. Their peer-reviewed research, published with Cambridge University Press, shows these interventions deliver extraordinary returns on investment.
For about $2.50, providing multiple micronutrient supplements to pregnant mothers can prevent child stunting and cognitive damage, generating an estimated $40 in lifetime economic benefits for every dollar spent.
To tackle the global learning crisis—where over half of ten-year-olds in low-income nations cannot read a simple sentence—proven solutions exist. Placing children in front of cheap tablets with educational software for an hour a day, coupled with structured lesson plans for teachers, costs just $10–$30 per child annually. These methods can double or triple a school's efficiency, offering a return of $65–$80 per dollar invested.
Similarly, scaling up the fight against tuberculosis and malaria through improved diagnosis, six-month TB treatment courses, and insecticide-treated bednets remains one of global health's best investments, delivering $46–$48 in social benefits per dollar.
A Pragmatic Path Forward
Collectively, implementing these 12 priority policies would require approximately $35 billion a year. This sum is a pittance compared to the over $10 trillion estimated to fulfil all the SDGs. Yet, this focused investment could yield staggering results: saving more than 4 million lives every year and generating an annual economic boost of a trillion dollars for the planet's poorer half.
The average return exceeds $50 for every dollar spent, fostering job creation, stability, and a more secure world. Lomborg urges governments to adopt these proven policies first. He also calls on philanthropists and individuals to direct their giving to outstanding charities that deliver tangible results like bed nets, vitamins, and effective teaching tools—organisations that achieve a hundred times more good than vague, feel-good campaigns.
The lesson for 2026 is clear: in an era of scarcity, the most ethical approach is to stop promising everything to everyone and start spending wisely on what demonstrably works.
