A New Approach to Prioritizing for Tonga

No nation, however rich, has enough resources to do everything. Hard choices must be made. Ultimately, the trade-off is the defining characteristic of politics: deciding where to spend extra resources first.

But some policies deliver large benefits for low costs, whereas others deliver little for high costs. Knowing which policies are most efficient can be incredibly helpful for more informed decision making.

Together with the Royal Oceania Institute the Copenhagen Consensus think tank has done a rapid cost-benefit assessment of a number of key policy considerations for Tonga. These have been chosen from The Tonga Strategic Development Framework: 2015–2025 (TSDF II), which sets out a high-level integrated vision of the direction for Tonga.

This analysis informs by showing which interventions would deliver the most social and economic benefits for every Tongan pa’anga (T$) spent. Although value-for-money is not the only relevant measure, it certainly is one important measure. The report shows the likely return on investment, the benefit-cost ratio (BCR), of each intervention based on international evidence. A BCR of 15 would mean that for every Tongan pa’anga spent, a given intervention will deliver 15 Tongan Pa’anga worth of social, economic, and environmental benefits.

It highlights EXCELLENT (BCR over 15) or GOOD (BCR = 5 to 15) interventions with dark and light green. FAIR interventions deliver moderate returns (BCR = 1 to 5), and POOR interventions (BCR below 1) will likely generate fewer benefits than the cost, meaning cost recovery will not be possible within the national development strategy.

This Rapid Assessment is not a conclusion but rather an aid to begin an even more informed conversation of future priorities for Tonga.