Voice of America article about RethinkHIV

The global goals are a phenomenal idea. They’re what happened when the United Nations came together and said: “Here are the world’s biggest problems, and here is how we’re going to measure progress on them.” The 17 goals include promises to end extreme poverty and hunger, fix climate change and education, and reduce inequality and corruption.

It is one of the best untold stories in the annals of development: great strides have been made against malaria, a disease that was once endemic across the world and, more recently, has remained the scourge of developing countries. Over the last 15 years, more than six million lives have been saved. Even better, the lessons of that success can – and therefore should – be applied to other great development challenges.

Domestic violence costs the world 25 times more than war and terrorism, according to research conducted by James Fearon of Stanford University and Anke Hoeffler of Oxford University on behalf of the Copenhagen Consensus Center.

By looking at different kinds of violence, Fearon and Hoeffler find that the global costs of conflict – including the economic toll of deaths from wars and terrorism, refugee-related outlays, and general pecuniary damage – add up to around 0.2% of global GDP each year.