The Millennium Development Goals or MDGs have dominated the international development discourse for the past 13 years. They have provided a framework for worldwide concerted efforts to tackle the biggest challenges faced by humanity – extreme poverty, hunger, diseases, child mortality and gender disparity, among others.
The MDGs are set to expire in 2015, and the international community is once again faced with the need to formulate a global plan to continue work on the challenges that remain and address new threats that have emerged since 2000.
A 27-person high-level panel of eminent persons was put together to formulate recommendations for UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon on a post-2015 global agenda. Recently the panel published a report titled, “A New Global Partnership: Eradicate Poverty and Transform Economies through Sustainable Development,” which outlines a universal agenda to eradicate extreme poverty by 2030 and a roadmap to achieve the goals of sustainable development.
This article will take a look into how the post 2015 development agenda is likely to shape up. However, let us first take stock of the MDGs and the progress made in poverty reduction so far.
A brief overview of MDGs and achievements
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) encompass eight development goals that were identified as priorities by the international community at the UN Millennium Summit held in New York in 2000. All 189 member states of the United Nations and major international development organisations agreed to undertake concerted and significant efforts to help citizens in the world’s poorest countries achieve these goals by 2015.
Specific sets of targets were set up under each area to track progress. For example, under “Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger” targets include halving the proportion of people whose income is less than $1.25 per day and halving the proportion of people who suffer from hunger by 2015. Under “Achieve universal primary education” a specific target is completion of a full course of primary schooling by both boys and girls, and so on.
There is wide consensus on the fact that MDGs raised the profile of development issues enabled an unprecedented mobilisation of political support in both the developed and developing countries. In developed countries this has led to increases in aid pledges. In developing countries this has focused government efforts on poverty reduction and have made sure that this stays on the agenda.
The MDGs have given a platform to civil society organisations (in both developing and developed countries) to lobby their governments and hold them to account. It has also provided a mechanism for mutual accountability at the international level between countries, although the efficacy of such mechanisms can be debatable.
MDG achievements to date
With respect to the actual accomplishments of the MDGs, the picture is mixed. Progress in reducing extreme poverty (goal 1) has defied all expectations and an impressive 455 million people were lifted out of poverty between 1990 and 2005. This target was met five years ahead of schedule, in 2010.
In the developing world, parity has been achieved in primary school enrollment between boys and girls (goal 3), however the results remain uneven among regions, with South Asia being one of the laggards.
On the other hand, areas such as reduction of child mortality (goal 4), improvement of maternal health (goal 5) and ensuring environmental sustainability (goal 7), in spite of significant progress, are not expected to meet their targets by the 2015 deadline.
In terms of the global partnership (goal 8), although the MDGs helped to mobilise large amounts of development funds, fiscal constraints in several developed countries has recently led to the decline of aid flows, for the first time in decades.
In 2011, net aid disbursement was $133.5 billion, representing 0.31 per cent of developed countries’ combined national income. While an increase in absolute dollars, this was a 2.7 per cent drop in real terms over 2010.
Delving deeper into the results also reveal a more nuanced picture of the claimed successes. For example, while the target of halving poverty was achieved, about 850 million people (nearly 15 percent of the global population) are estimated to be under-nourished.
Under promotion of gender equality and empowerment of women (goal 3), we find that while parity has been achieved in primary school enrolment between men and women, equal access to job opportunities is still a far-off goal for many women in developing countries.
The MDGs, however, have also faced quite some criticism from the development community over the years. A major criticism is that it’s a donor-led agenda, taking little account of the local context, politics and policy of developing countries.
In measuring progress, MDGs track average progress at the national or local level, and as such it is accused of disregarding issues of inequality. NGOs, such as Save the Children, have accused that the situation for the poorest has actually been getting worse in many countries. Only two of the MDGs explicitly call for gender-disaggregated measures of progress.
MDGs also failed to integrate economic, social and environmental aspects of sustainable development. Therefore, it excluded crucial dimensions of development, such as climate change, human rights, good governance and security and the role of inclusive growth to provide jobs.
MDGs and Bangladesh
Bangladesh’s progress on the MDGs has been mixed. Great achievement has been made in absolute poverty reduction - less than a third of Bangladeshis now live below the poverty line, a reduction attained in only a decade. However, a 2011 assessment by the UNDP indicates that there is rising regional and social disparities and persistent pockets of extreme poverty exist.
While gender parity has been achieved in primary school enrollment, dropout rates are still high and there is a long way to go in reaching parity of male and female students in tertiary education.
Bangladesh is among only 16 countries in the world that are on track to achieving MDG 4 on child mortality.
A new global agreement after 2015
In May 2012 Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and United Kingdom Prime Minister David Cameron were invited to chair the UN High Level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post 2015 development agenda. The 27 member panel included representatives from government, business and civil society from all regions of the world.
This undertaking was unique in several ways – it was the first UN High Level Panel to include more women than men. Unparalleled efforts were undertaken to receive public input over 9 months.
Input was solicited from thousands of people around the world, including the poorest people, in face-to-face meetings, surveys, community interviews, and polling over internet and mobile phones.
It appears that significant efforts were taken to address some of the criticism leveled against the MDGs. For example, the Panel recommends that targets will be considered ‘achieved’ only if they are met for all income and social groups. Linkages with the Rio+20 sustainable development agenda were taken into account.
The result is a universal agenda which applies to developed and developing countries alike and includes roles for not just governments but also communities, businesses and civil society.
Notable change from the MDGs can be seen in the way the agenda is presented – the language is more accessible with much less jargon, presented in an easy to navigate website called, “The World We Want” (http://www.worldwewant2015.org/)
It is stated that the new development agenda is driven by five fundamental, transformative shifts:
Leave no one behind Put sustainable development at the core Transform economies for jobs and inclusive growth Build peace and effective, open and accountable institutions Forge a new global partnershipWith “leave no one behind”, equality for the first time takes centre stage in the poverty eradication agenda. Similarly, it is recognised that justice, safety, a voice and accountable government are goods in themselves, and as important to people as access to health and education.
Sustainable development and the need to tackle climate change is acknowledged in the form of promoting more sustainable consumption and production patterns and the need to create jobs and inclusive economic growth.
A set of 12 goals have been set out by the Panel which are informed by the 5 transformative shifts and provide the framework to eradicate extreme poverty by 2030. These are:
l End poverty. l Empower girls and women and achieve gender equality l Provide quality education and lifelong equality l Ensure healthy lives l Ensure food security and good nutrition l Achieve universal access to water sanitation l Secure sustainable energy l Create jobs, sustainable livelihoods, and equitable growth l Manage natural resource assets sustainability l Ensure good governance and effective institutions l Ensure stable and peaceful societies l Create global enabling environment and catalyse long term finance
Encouragingly, a lot of emphasis has also been put on measuring progress. The report calls for a data revolution. Availability of more, better quality and easily accessible data will strengthen accountability, empower citizens, business and civil society and help governments find out whether the poorest and the neediest are receiving essential services.
First reaction from Bangladesh
A roundtable discussion was held at the British High Commission on June 19, 2013 to introduce the high level report on the post 2015 development agenda to public policy practitioners, journalists and dignitaries. The speakers in the panel were – British High Commissioner Robert W Gibson, Sarah Cook, head of DFID Bangladesh, Neal Walker, UN Resident Advisor, Rehman Sobhan, head of CPD, Dr. Shamsul Alam, Director General at the Foreign Ministry Riaz Hamidullah.
Neal Walker noted the importance of Bangladesh among the Least Develop Countries (LDCs) due to the size of its population. Population-wise, Bangladesh is the largest LDC and the challenges Bangladesh faces reflect the challenges of all.
Several speakers noted that there is a lot of convergence between the findings of the national level consultation and the recommendations of the high-level report.
Some criticisms leveled towards the high level report by Bangladeshi experts include the fact that the new proposal suffers from the same faults as the MDGs in that it only deals with the symptoms of poverty but does not deal with the root causes. While it contains goals on reaching the poorest and underprivileged people it does not specify measurable goals. It was urged that any new global agreement needs to address the structural injustices that cause poverty instead of just focusing on moving people above the poverty line.
The report misses important issues that perpetuate inequality – differences in the quality of education received by the elite versus the poor, the inequitable impact of market forces. It does not address the reasons behind the lack of good governance – such as the role of money in accessing public office. Poor working conditions and lack of protection for workers which lead to tragedies such as Rana Plaza.
Another major line of criticism was that it handles the impact of climate change inadequately. It has been pointed out that too much focus has been placed on private finances and markets and market-driven technology but not enough on essential non-market technology initiatives such as technology for agriculture, livelihood and water projects. It also doesn’t take account of regional cooperative frameworks.
For countries such as Bangladesh, which is on the frontlines of climate adaptation, it doesn’t account for the lack of institutional capacity to absorb large amounts of climate adaptation funds. This is a crucial issue for a country such as ourselves.
Experts have expressed skepticism that if these issues are not dealt with then it is unlikely that qualitative change will be achieved by 2030.
What happens next?
The final set of post 2015 goals will be negotiated in the UN over the next two years, in particular through the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals. The report will serve as a source of ideas and inspiration for the international community for the discussions that follow.
Conclusion
Will the new global plan successfully eradicate poverty by 2030 and lead to sustainable development and better lives for citizens across the globe? As all international agreements, they can only do so much. The devil is in the detail. It creates a platform for discussion and to focus on particular important issues. However, being universal agendas, they are also incapable of adequately taking into account the local level challenges. At the end of the day the answers lie in the political negotiations and manoeuvring that each nation must go through in order to achieve their goals in reducing poverty and ensuring better lives for their citizens.