In China's 12th five-year plan hydropower projects are a stated priority.
Indeed, education, a key to social mobility, is a stated priority for the affluent.
But with climate change a stated priority for President Obama and Congress, how did they fall so short?
Each president made terrorism a stated priority, failed to find a diplomatic solution and viewed military force as a last resort.
In Italy, addressing youth unemployment is a stated priority of the 11-week old government of Enrico Letta, which at the end of June approved a series of programs to increase jobs.
Continuing technical development is a stated priority.
This push is happening even as federal efforts to shut down corporate tax havens, a stated priority of the Obama administration, seem increasingly remote.
Health systems strengthening is clearly a stated priority of donors and a significant portion of spending undoubtedly benefits the surrounding health system in recipient countries.
When entertaining the crowd becomes its stated priority, as in exhibition matches, it ironically becomes harder to achieve as the event is robbed of the chance of that real drama.
Appropriate groundwater resource management becomes a priority for the States of the semi-arid southern India.
