Next item on the agenda: halve world poverty, bring hope to millions. Price: $50bn (£27bn) or so in extra aid per year. Alternative: continued preventable suffering and deprivation, above all in sub-Saharan Africa, and failure to meet the 2015 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This is the gist of the Millennium Project report published yesterday.

The report is twice as long as it should be and reads as if it was prepared by committee. It offers certainties where hard experience teaches caution. Yet the underlying message shines through. There is an overwhelming case for a step-change in aid, focused on relatively well-governed poor countries, where there is reason to believe it will not be wasted.