12 cost-effective ways to help the world’s poorest
With global development goals falling short and resources dwindling, nations and philanthropists must abandon the comprehensive Sustainable Development Goals and instead focus their limited funds on a dozen proven, highly cost-effective policies, says Bjorn Lomborg
The start of a new year is a time for reflection and resolve. Yet amid our personal goals for 2026, we rarely pause to ask a harder question: if we want to help the world’s poor, how can we do it in the best possible way?
The United Nations’ attempt to answer that question effectively died in 2025. A decade ago, it committed everything to everyone through the Sustainable Development Goals – it would fix poverty, hunger, disease, unemployment, climate change and war by 2030. Last year’s progress report admitted the painful truth: only 18 per cent of 169 UN targets are on track, while one-third are stalled or going backward. While global hunger declined slightly, child stunting crept upward in Africa. The learning crisis – where more than half of ten-year-olds in low-income countries still cannot read a simple sentence – barely budged.
We didn’t hear much about these development challenges because 2025 was already crowded with urgent geopolitical and economic news. Russia’s war in Ukraine continued to drive up food and fertilizer prices. Conflicts in the Middle East and Sudan displaced millions. Ballooning debt costs in developing countries made it ever harder to invest in health and education.
Rich nations, facing their own geopolitical threats, inflation, and deficits, slashed foreign-aid budgets. After a 9 per cent drop in 2024, we’re likely to see another 9-17 per cent decline in 2025. Aid for the world’s poorest countries could be cut by one-quarter. At the same time, major development organizations now divert over $85bn of aid toward virtue-signaling climate projects, further starving basic development.
Sobering truth
The sobering truth is that 2026 will mean even fewer resources to do good. We have to stop pretending that we can afford to do everything all at once, as the Sustainable Development Goals still do. When each dollar is fought over, dividing 100 cents across 169 promises means minimal progress anywhere.
But there are still hopeful ways to help in 2026. My think tank, the Copenhagen Consensus, has spent years working with more than a hundred top economists and several Nobel laureates to answer a simple question: Given money is tight, where can each scarce dollar do the most good? Our peer-reviewed research, published for free in a series of research papers with Cambridge University Press, points to a dozen phenomenal policies that deliver astonishing returns even in today’s harsh fiscal reality.
Take nutrition. While over eight per cent of the global population is still undernourished, we know that helping children in the first thousand days of their lives – in the womb and in their first years – can do phenomenal good for little money. For about $2.50, we can supply mothers with multiple micronutrient supplements across their pregnancy. This will help avoid the baby becoming stunted and reduce irreversible cognitive damage, making the child more likely to become stronger and smarter, becoming more productive in adult life. Research shows that every dollar delivers around $40 in lifetime economic benefits – better than most policies being pursued today.
Or consider the learning crisis, where research has identified simple, proven fixes. Putting children in front of cheap tablets with educational software one hour a day can help each pupil learn at their own level and speed. Structured plans for every class can help teachers teach better. These policies cost just $10–$30 per child per year, but they can double or triple the school’s overall efficiency. In an era of shrinking education budgets, these interventions return $65–$80 per dollar invested. Instead of condemning another generation to illiteracy and low productivity, these solutions offer hope.
The fight against tuberculosis and malaria is losing momentum. Yet scaling up diagnosis, six-month TB treatment courses and insecticide treated bednets are among the very best buys in global health, delivering $46–$48 of social benefits for every dollar spent.
Altogether, the 12 policies would cost about $35bn a year—a pittance compared to the over $10 trillion needed to deliver the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
These $35bn could save more than 4m lives every year and make the poorer half of the planet a trillion dollars better off annually – creating jobs and stability, making the world a more secure place. That is an average return of more than $50 for every dollar.
Governments should adopt these 12 proven policies first. Philanthropists and the rest of us can direct our own giving to the outstanding charities that deliver bed nets, vitamins, TB treatment and effective teaching – organizations that achieve a hundred-times more good than feel-good campaigns with vague impact.
The lesson for 2026 is stark but powerful: when resources are scarce, we must stop promising everything and instead spend well.
Bjorn Lomborg is President of the Copenhagen Consensus, Visiting Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, and author of “Best Things First”.