Smart Development Targets

Scenes of devastation from Australia’s fires have been heartbreaking. How do we stop this suffering? For many campaigners and politicians, the answer is clear-cut: drastic climate policies. When we examine the evidence, this simple answer falls short.

Each year, Bangladesh spends more than Tk. 72,000 crore on government procurement. That includes paying for anything from Padma Bridge to pencils for government offices and everything in-between. Imagine if this process could be done just 1 percent more efficiently - that would save Tk. 720 crore. As it turns out, it can likely be improved by closer to 10 percent, saving billions of takas that could pay for other projects or services.

(...) Torethy Frank, a 39-year-old woman carving out a subsistence lifestyle on Vanuatu's Nguna Island, is one of those "innocent people." Yet, she has never heard of the problem that her government rates as a top priority. "What is global warming?" she asks a researcher for the Copenhagen Consensus Center. (...) Read it online BL 2009 Oct 22 WSJ Vanuatu