Copenhagen Consensus vs. Pristina Consensus

The Indonesians allocated 10 percent of the government budget for education, then changed the Constitution to allocate 20 percent, and in the end it turned out that nothing changed for the students. Without knowing this, they were caught up in the Pristina Consensus of the belief that more money put into a problem makes the problem smaller.

1.

Almost at the same time, some 20 years ago, two consensuses on development were established. One is now known in the world as the Copenhagen Consensus, and the other is not known in the world, but we will call it the Pristina Consensus.

The Copenhagen Initiative was initiated by Danish statistician and economist Bjorn Lomborg in 2004, based on a simple observation: there are many ideas and many analyses in the world, and then there are many goals that societies and governments want to achieve, but there is no system that would assess which problems should be tackled and why. In 2004, Lomborg gathered a group of eight Nobel laureates in economics, along with experts from various fields, to create a list of the most effective investments for the world. 

The direct cause, as Lomborg will explain in his book "Best Things First", was the debate about the UN Sustainable Development Goals until 2030. He found there that in international debates it continues to be said "constantly saying yes" to the ideas and definitions of the goals and thus reaching 169 commitments in four thousand words of the final document.

The Copenhagen Consensus will succeed in proving that from a list of 169 commitments, focusing on 12 with a cost-benefit-based methodology ensures that the effects of every dollar invested are seen with a multiplied effect.

The Pristina consensus was built early in this century. When Bjorn Lomborg was at the UN to condense 169 commitments into 12, Kosovo was under the administration of the UN, of UNMIK, and at that time the general belief, both in UNMIK and among every Kosovar, was that wherever a dollar of investment is put in - health, education, police, prosecution, and so on - it will be good, because in every field there is a need for investment after a decade of occupation and war by Serbia against the citizens of Kosovo. 

The Pristina consensus was that the country needed more aid dollars. The Copenhagen consensus was that the world needs to be more thoughtful about where it sends aid dollars.

2.

The Pristina consensus went through metamorphoses, as did the power from UNMIK to the institutions of the Republic, and it came to shape the idea that any problem in Kosovo is solved by investing as much money as possible in it. The best example was and remains education: over the past 20 years, a consensus has been built that the country's priority is to support education, and every government has committed to pouring budget into it, increasing salaries and building schools. During this period, it also emerged that the overwhelming majority of 15-year-old Kosovar children in the PISA test (almost 80 percent) do not understand the text they read.

Kosovo is not alone in this trap. “Best Things First” gives the example of Indonesia. “In 2001, the government allocated ten percent of its budget to education, and four years later, the Indonesian parliament amended the country’s Constitution to require that twenty percent of the budget be spent on education. This doubled spending on education, from $18 billion in 2005 to $45 billion today. Indonesia increased the number of teachers from 2.7 to 3.8 million in just 11 years, giving the country one of the smallest class sizes in the world. It also doubled the average income of teachers. A well-known study showed that this – as expected – improved teachers’ satisfaction with their income and reduced financial stress and dependence on second jobs. Unfortunately, this had no impact on students’ learning outcomes.”

3.

Indonesians and other large countries, among them the largest India, caught on to the fashion of the beginning of the century and the technological revolution in it. The idea that was launched at that time was “a laptop per student” and India began to produce the cheapest laptops in the world to achieve the goal of equipping every child with new technology. This did not work either. And then tablets came along and here in some parts of India a logical problem arose: maybe it is not about technology as “hardware” (laptop or tablet) but about technology as “software”, as an operating and application program. And, some parts of India today are known for their brilliant students, especially in information technology, because for each tablet a software was invented that would “understand” the student, his skills and knowledge, and thanks to them to create a special curriculum, made with powerful information technology to promote his education.
Today this software is available to every country in the world that wants to educate its children beyond the simple concept of "the more money, the more music."

And, similar solutions exist within the Copenhagen Consensus for a series of problems that, when solved, dramatically change people's lives. But, to find solutions, one must start from the initial premise: there are many problems, there are even more proposals to find solutions, but the only way they will be solved efficiently is if they are transformed into priorities on a short list and with a clear assessment that in the cost-benefit ratio the social effect is many times greater.

4.

As Kosovo enters the second quarter of the 21st century, perhaps one of the most important conceptual steps it could take is to abandon the Pristina consensus, that the more money you put into a problem, the less the problem will be. 

No, more money in this education system will not change education.

No, even a billion euros invested in a new highway, as a model of economic development for this century, will not change the economy. Nor will more money in the current energy system built under socialism change the country's energy security.

And no, even more money in this prosecutorial and judicial system will not change the rule of law system.

Perhaps the Copenhagen Consensus should be welcomed, with a simple and initial question among experts, politicians, thinkers and observers as to which issues would deserve priority attention and an urgent change in approach to investment. The second and natural step is to resolve three of the hundred issues that arise, because a society that successfully resolves three will then find its way to the next three.