They prioritize.

But first things first.

And one reason is that prioritization is incredibly uncomfortable.

Other possible priorities hardly ever entered political discussions.

We're not matching our resources to our priorities.

What should be at the bottom of the list?

But it's to say, when we don't, it's just simply not our first priority.

Please, just take 30 seconds, perhaps talk to your neighbor, and just figure out what should be the top priorities and the bottom priorities of the solutions that we have to the world's biggest issues.

So in many ways, I think of the Copenhagen Consensus and the whole discussion of priorities as a defense for boring problems.

And that it wasn't until 2009, when President Obama signed off on a surge, that we finally had, in the words of Secretary Clinton, the strategy, the leadership and the resources.

So, if we go back to our list, we've now eradicated the financial struggles, which means that an individual could provide for their family and has access to medicine, food and shelter.

At the end of the day, you can disagree with the discussion of how we actually prioritize these, but we have to be honest and frank about saying, if there's some things we do, there are other things we don't do.

The wider politics of poverty must be placed at the top of the international agenda, along with the three factors most critical to development climate, conflict, and capital.

Please, just take 30 seconds, perhaps talk to your neighbor, and just figure out what should be the top priorities and the bottom priorities of the solutions that we have to the world's biggest issues.

It is not that the new promises are not well intentioned. The problem is that they do not reflect effective prioritization, which is critical when resources are limited.

The core institutions that were put in place in 1998 and their modifications in 2006 and 2008 were highly innovative and allowed all conflict parties to see their core concerns and demands addressed.

We need to focus not only on the European Union s specific policies, but also on how to change its politics a change that must place economic growth at the top of the agenda.

But that slowness, that caution, the fact that President Clinton initially said that American troops would only be deployed for a year, turned out to be a strength, and it helped us to put our priorities right.

At the end of the day, you can disagree with the discussion of how we actually prioritize these, but we have to be honest and frank about saying, if there's some things we do, there are other things we don't do.

Nonetheless, the US seems destined to remain the world s most important actor for the foreseeable future. But today it is an actor without a script it lacks a strategic guide comparable to the Cold War s containment doctrine to prioritize policy.

It is the only way to ensure that merit trumps favoritism and thus to end the country s colossal misallocation of resources. When credit is politicized, investment priorities quickly become distorted.

There were also, according to Putin s regime, too many public institutions performing too many activities with insufficient oversight, so they were made smaller and given specific tasks from a short centralized list of priorities. Multiple higher courts were too difficult to maintain, so a single court replaced them.

India s National Rural Health Mission has adopted such an approach, using region specific data to identify low quality prenatal care, unsafe deliveries, and lack of access to birth control as high priority issues in 18 states.