Copenhagen Consensus UNICEF

Copenhagen Consensus – A United Nations Perspective took place in New York from the 27th to 28th of October 2006 at UNICEF House, New York.

The meeting brought together a number of UN ambassadors and set focus on the issue of prioritising the use of limited resources in the global effort to mitigate the negative consequences of ten global challenges such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, hunger and climate change. The event raised the question:

In a world of limited resources, if we cannot do everything at once, what should we do first?

The ambassadors met in closed sessions to discuss and prioritize solutions to ten of the world's biggest challenges. The event was an important way of encouraging the UN system as well as UN member countries to work transparently and realistically with priorization in their work with the world's biggest challenges (for further details see 'background').

The book How to Spend $50 Billion to Make the World a Better Place provides summaries of the economic background papers and the academic foundation of the conference.