Taking the MDGs Beyond 2015: Hasten Slowly
From Wikiprogress.org
Contents |
Taking the MDGs Beyond 2015: Hasten Slowly
The author of this article is Jan Vandemoortele, former official of UNICEF and UNDP and co-architect of the Millennium Development Goals. It was commissioned for a High-Level Policy Forum on ―After 2015: Promoting Pro-Poor Policy after the MDGs, organised by DSA/EADI/Action Aid; in Brussels, June 2009
Overview
The MDGs have been tremendously successful in galvanizing political leaders, civil society organisations, private sector actors, the media and donors in the pursuit of human development. The conceivers of the MDGs never expected the support to spread so wide and so deep. As the 2015 deadline draws closer, the calls for preparing the post-2015 period are being made with greater frequency and more urgency. Several actors are determined to shape the new framework and believe that early proposals will make the greatest impact. A hasty definition of the post-2015 targets would be ill-advised. Considerable work is required beforehand. It would be a grave mistake to take for granted the continued support for the current set of goals and targets beyond 2015 without responding to the many concerns and criticism voiced by several stakeholders, observers and analysts
Six areas of concern
Before taking the MDGs beyond 2015, several aspects need to be clarified and modified. They include: (a) reshaping the structure of the set of goals and targets; (b) interpreting global targets as collective ones; (c) redefining the type of benchmarks; (d) setting new quantitative targets; (e) fixing a new time horizon; and (f) monitoring below the national surface.
New structure
The current set of MDGs has three health-related goals (i.e. child mortality, maternal health, infectious diseases). They could be collapsed into one overall health goal, 5 thereby making space for the inclusion of other areas of concern. The current set of MDGs also includes two overlapping targets – i.e. countries that achieve universal primary education automatically comply with the target on gender equality in education. Such overlaps are unnecessary and ultimately unfair.
Global targets, not national ones
The post-2015 targets must guard against the misconception that global and national targets are one and the same.
Type of benchmarks
Performance can be measured according to absolute or relative benchmarks. Both are valid but none gives a complete picture. Most of the MDGs are expressed in relative terms – e.g. reducing poverty by half; cutting infant mortality by two-thirds; slashing maternal mortality by three-quarters. Since proportional changes tend to be inversely related to the initial situation, the current set of MDGs puts the least developed and the low income countries at a disadvantage. This leads to an unconcealed discrimination against these countries. Earlier targets were expressed in either absolute terms or combined relative and absolute benchmarks. The post-2015 goals and targets will have to consider the implication of selecting a particular type of benchmark.
New targets
A multitude of new candidates is knocking at the MDG-door. They range from climate change to secondary education, quality of education, human rights, infrastructure, economic growth, good governance, security and others. While included in the current MDGs, many have criticised the poor coverage of gender equality and environmental sustainability. Defining the content of the post-2015 set will demand tough choices. The natural tendency is to accommodate more goals and targets, thereby diminishing their capacity for being understood intuitively and communicated easily with the general public. A strong but fair gatekeeper will be called for, because ‗less is more‘.
New time horizon
The post-2015 targets will need to be clear about the baseline year and the period over which they are to be achieved. The selection of the 6 time horizon will need to take into account the usual 3-5 year time lag in obtaining global statistics.
Disaggregated monitoring
The world is unlikely to meet the MDGs, largely because disparities within the majority of countries have grown to the point of slowing down national progress.13 Monitoring must bring this to the fore. The MDG indicator for measuring equity – i.e. the ‗share of the poorest quintile in national consumption‘ – covers it only partially. Moreover, it is seldom mentioned by the many MDG monitoring reports. The growing availability of disaggregated data, however, makes it possible to adjust key national statistics for equity. Given its critical importance for achieving the MDGs and for realising pro-poor growth, the remainder of the paper presents a concrete proposal on how to move forward on disaggregated monitoring.
Equity-adjusted national statistics
Different groups in society usually have different levels of social and economic wellbeing. Data confirm that social indicators vary considerably across groups within countries. Thus, national statistics do not only reveal; they also conceal. Some call it the ‘fallacy of the mean‘; others put it more strongly as the ‗tyranny of averages‘. Recent surveys provide disaggregated data – especially the Demographic & Health Surveys (DHS) and the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS). They have generated information by wealth quintile (i.e. a fifth of the population) for numerous countries. The grouping of households is not based on income or consumption, which are notoriously difficult to measure. Instead, it is based on household assets that can be readily observed – such as the possession of a bicycle or a radio, electricity or water connections, size of dwelling and type of construction materials.14
Patterns of disparities:
In short, there are different patterns to distribute a national statistic across the population. At one extreme, progress can be limited to improvements for the better-off people – i.e. through a low-equity approach. At the other extreme, national progress can be driven by ameliorations in the situation of the worse-off people – i.e. through a high-equity approach. Many combinations are possible in-between.
Proposed method
Adjusting a national statistic for disparities can be done by weighing the quintile-specific values in a way that accords more importance to progress for the lower quintiles than to similar progress for the upper quintiles. Table 1 proposes weights that adjust for equity. According to standard practice, the national average gives an equal weight to each quintile.16 The equity-adjusted national average accords a higher weight to the lower quintiles.
See also
References
Vandemortele, Jan. 2009. "Taking the MDGs Beyond 2015: Hasten Slowly" in After 2015: Promoting Pro-Poor Policy after the MDGs, organised by DSA/EADI/Action Aid;(Brussels).
