The Millennium Development Goals MDGs

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The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)

• Outline
• The MDGs
• Origin and motivation
• Global progress towards achieving the MDGs
• Some factors accounting for variations in
  progress
• Debates about key policy actions to achieve the
  MDGs

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The Millennium Development Goals

• Issues in Development, Lecture 8
• Prof Andy McKay, a.mckay_at_sussex.ac.uk

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The MDGs

• Set of goals (8), targets (18) and indicators
• Goal 1 Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
• Goal 2 Achieve universal primary education
• Goal 3 Promote gender equality and empower women
• Goal 4 Reduce child mortality
• Goal 5 Improve maternal health
• Goal 6 Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other
  diseases
• Goal 7 Ensure environmental sustainability
• Goal 8 Develop a global partnership for
  development

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MDGs (2)

• Goals complemented by more specific targets
• Timescales identified for targets (except goal 8)
  and quantifiable indicators for monitoring
  progress
• Implies need for good quality data

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MDGs (3)

• Argument that MDGs provide
• Basis for resource mobilisation from
  industrialised countries
• Comprehensive framework for monitoring progress
• Accountability bilateral and multilateral
  donors international financial institutions
  countries themselves
• But also questions about value of MDGs
• The goals/targets etc. chosen
• Concerns about distorting priorities
• Quality of the basic data for monitoring

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Origin and motivation of the MDGs

• Originated from donor discussions (OECD
  Development Assistance Committee or DAC) in mid
  1990s about international development targets
• Motivation to help mobilise aid funds and make
  them effective
• Little input from poor countries, civil society
  etc.
• Movement towards more partnership approach in
  aid and focus on poverty reduction

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Origin and motivation (2)

• MDGs developed with more input from poor
  countries
• UN Millennium Declaration and UN Millennium
  Summit 2000
• Various important subsequent initiatives,
  including
• UN Financing for Development Conference,
  Monterrey, 2002
• Proposals for International Financing Facility
• Various reviews of MDG progress in 2005
• The Millennium Project

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Origin and Motivation (3)

• More buy in by donors
• Bilateral
• Multilateral UN, World Bank, IMF
• But still often not strongly reflected in country
  strategies

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Global progress towards achieving the MDGs

• Big variety of experience by region and by goal
• But at present rates of change most targets will
  not be achieved globally by 2015
• None in all regions
• Reversals in some cases
• Relatively good progress in East Asia and Pacific
• Some progress in South Asia
• Poor progress or reversals in sub Saharan Africa
  and many transition countries

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Global progress (2)

• Consider some selected goals
• Goal 1 poverty and hunger
• Poverty target based on those living on less than
  1 per person per day
• Globally on target but because of Asia

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Global progress (3)

• Progress in reducing hunger but below target
• Some factors agricultural production, population
  growth, conflict
• More than a quarter of children malnourished
  highest in Southern Asia

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Global progress (4)

• Goal 3 Gender equality
• Gender gaps remain in education
• Share of women in waged jobs small but
  increasing
• Progress in number of women in important decision
  making positions but still low

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Global progress (5)

• Goal 6 HIV/AIDS component
• Leading cause of premature death in Sub Saharan
  Africa
• HIV prevalence has stabilised, but AIDS deaths
  continue to rise
• Particular impact on women and girls
• Other regions not exempt
• Some success stories

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Global progress (6)

• Goal 8 Global partnership
• Resource flows
• Trade and agricultural policy of rich countries

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Some factors accounting for variations in progress

• Effectiveness of public policies including
  international
• Extent of economic growth
• Increasing inequality in many countries
• HIV/AIDS
• Variations in population growth rates
• Environmental degradation, natural disasters,
  violent conflict
• Etc.

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Policies to achieve the MDGs

• Progress currently off track
• Many different views on policy actions needed
• World Bank
• Need for MDG based development strategies
• Better environment for private sector led growth
• Scale up human development services
• Dismantle trade barriers
• Substantial increase in level and effectiveness
  of aid

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Policies to achieve MDGs (2)

• Millennium Project
• Investing in Development Report identifies four
  main issues
• Governance failures (below)
• Countries caught in poverty traps (below)
• Pockets of poverty within countries
• Lagging regions or groups including in Middle
  Income Countries
• Areas of specific policy neglect
• e.g. gender bias in policy, environmental policy,
  emergency obstetric care etc.

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Policies to achieve the MDGs (3)

• Governance failures. Some important aspects
• Rule of law, property rights etc.
• Sound economic policy
• Public investment and effective public
  administration accountable and transparent
• Human rights and role for civil society

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Policies to achieve the MDGs (4)

• Poverty traps. Idea of countries being too poor
  to be able to grow.
• Lack of fiscal resources to invest in key areas
• Debt servicing / insufficient levels of aid
• Levels of capital too low investment, human
  capital etc
• Plus often many other issues environmental
  degradation, rapid population growth, violent
  conflict, brain drain

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Policies to achieve the MDGs (5)

• Some of these may be governance issues
• Others may reflect geographic disadvantage
• Sachs uses this to argue for large scaling up in
  aid flows (plus debt cancellation)
• But many countries not yet ready to absorb large
  increases in aid volumes
• Important concerns about quality of aid
• But also about capacity of recipient governments
  to use resources effectively aid effectiveness
  debate

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Additional References

• UN, Millennium Development Goals Report 2005 or
  2006.
• Millennium Project, Investing in Development A
  Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium
  Development Goals
• UNDP, Human Development Report 2003 (on MDGs)
• World Bank/IMF, Global Monitoring Report 2005.
  Millennium Development Goals from Consensus to
  Momentum
• Jeffrey D. Sachs and others, Ending Africas
  Poverty Trap, Brookings Papers on Economic
  Activity 1 2004, pp. 117-240.

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Websites

• http//www.un.org/millenniumgoals/
• http//www.undp.org/mdg/
• http//www.unmillenniumproject.org/goals/index.htm
  
• http//www.developmentgoals.org/