80 university students from 25 countries were invited to the Youth Forum in Copenhagen in May 2004. The participants in the Youth Forum were put to the same task as the economic experts in the Copenhagen Consensus panel: answering the question of how we should prioritize solutions to ten of the world's most pressing challenges.
The vision of Copenhagen Consensus Youth Forum was to contribute to an open, public debate on how to prioritize solutions to ten of the world's most pressing challenges.
Which challenges should we fight first: that 800 million people starve, that more than one billion people don't have access to safe drinking water, that one million people will be affected by global warming? Copenhagen Consensus dealt with this difficult prioritization by looking at concrete opportunities.
By asking decision-makers of tomorrow to express their priorities to supplement those of the economists' expert panel, the youth forum served to broaden and anchor the Copenhagen Consensus idea globally, and across generations.
The Copenhagen Consensus 2004 Youth Forum came up with this prioritized list:
The Copenhagen Consensus Youth Forum was held at the same time as the Copenhagen Consensus 2004. The purpose of the Youth Forum was to put the question of prioritization on the agenda and make the ideas and concepts behind Copenhagen Consensus more accessible.
