With global development goals falling short and resources dwindling, nations and philanthropists must abandon the comprehensive Sustainable Development Goals and instead focus their limited funds on a dozen proven, highly cost-effective policies, says Bjorn Lomborg

The start of a new year is a time for reflection and resolve. Yet amid our personal goals for 2026, we rarely pause to ask a harder question: if we want to help the world’s poor, how can we do it in the best possible way?

The United Nations’ attempt to answer that question effectively died in 2025. A decade ago, it committed everything to everyone through the Sustainable Development Goals – it would fix poverty, hunger, disease, unemployment, climate change and war by 2030. Last year’s progress report admitted the painful truth: only 18 per cent of 169 UN targets are on track, while one-third are stalled or going backward. While global hunger declined slightly, child stunting crept upward in Africa. The learning crisis – where more than half of ten-year-olds in low-income countries still cannot read a simple sentence – barely budged.

We didn’t hear much about these development challenges because 2025 was already crowded with urgent geopolitical and economic news. Russia’s war in Ukraine continued to drive up food and fertilizer prices. Conflicts in........

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