Bjorn Lomborg's testimony to Congress

The Australian government's decision to step up its fight against the scourge of domestic violence does not just make moral sense: it is underpinned by a sound economic case too.

Researchers for Copenhagen Consensus recently conducted one of the first analyses of the total costs of violence worldwide, and found that gender-based violence – believed to affect around one in three women globally – has a considerably higher financial impact on society than many would think.

Domestic violence is a human rights issue, a public health issue and an economic development issue.

In Haiti, evidence from confidential surveys suggests that domestic violence is a serious problem: it appears that around 273,200 women suffer from severe physical and/or sexual violence per year. This adds up to 9.4 percent of the population of 14- to 49-year-old women.

War Is a Long, Messy Hell And it’s more important than ever that we try to prevent it in the first place.

By Bjørn Lomborg Posted Wednesday, May 9, 2012, at 3:10 PM ET

Without peace and stability, there are impediments to solving every other challenge that we have looked at in the Copenhagen Consensus 2012 series. Armed conflict is a major global problem that disproportionately affects the world’s poorest. Not a single low-income country afflicted by violence has achieved even one of the eight Millennium Development goals.