OWG Proposed Target 11.1
RATING: FAIR - the focus should be on providing affordable, mass produced, temporary housing to those that wish to move to cities in the developing world to 2030. The benefits are large, and the costs are relatively low. Housing does not need to be permanent because wealth in developing nations will increase over the medium term, and preferences for the type of housing are likely to change. Regarding slums, from an economic perspective, it can be preferable to accommodate more individuals in cities, even in unstructured housing, than to have planned housing but less people in cities.
Setting the Right Global Goals
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You can read about our prioritization project, setting smart, cost-effective goals in this op-ed published around the world including Turkey, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Uganda, South Korea, Costa Rica and the Philippines.
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In our recent report, not just the target above, but all 169 targets have been assessed by 60 teams of the world’s top economists. The targets have been categorized into five ratings based on evidence of economic, social, and environmental costs and benefits. While we applaud that the UN Open Working Group's final outcome document contains 43 fewer targets than the previous document, we are concerned that many targets have simply been combined, therefore reducing the number of both phenomenal and poor targets assessed according to our cost-benefit analysis. Our new assessment includes suggestions for how these can be improved as reported in this article by the Financial Times.