The Millennium Development Goals Beyond 2015: Issues for Discussion
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The Millennium Development Goals Beyond 2015: Issues for Discussion
This paper, published in April 2009, was written by Selim Jahan,Director of Poverty Practice, United Nations Development Programme, New York, USA.
Overview
The progress in the fulfillment of the Millenium Development Goals has been stalled by a series of shock and crisis (food, energy, economic and financial) which seriously compromise the 2005 deadline.
In all probability, it seems that there may not be a single developing country which will achieve all the MDGs, many countries will achieve some of the MDGs, but not all of them, and some countries may achieve none of them. And the world will also realize that there would be life beyond 2015. The critical question is whether the world is prepared itself, in the context of the MDGs, for beyond 2015. The present note is a humble attempt to raise some critical issues for discussion as we pass 2010 and approach 2015.
Set of goal:
In spite of their success, the notion that the current sets of goals and targets can be extrapolated beyond 2015 has to be questioned. The world is changing with new development issues and challenges. In five years time, the canvass will change even more and a simple continuation of the current set will not be desirable – either politically or in terms of development challenges.
- Number and structure of goals and targets
- Benchmarks
- Time horizon
- Tailoring, localization and disaggregation
- Consultations
Assessment of needs.
The need assessment in the post-2015 period will neither have to address the issue of resource need, but not exclusively on it nor in reference to costing, as has been the case during the preceding decade. The need assessment beyond 2015 will have to focus on three areas
- What worked and what not
- Capacity gaps
- Alliance gap
- Linkages between MDG 8 and the rest of the MDGs
So far, the discussion and the implementation of the MDGs were done in such a fashion where there seems to be a delinking between MDG 8 and rest of the MDGs. Part of the delinking is the outcome of the fact that MDG 8 is a combination of many issues ranging from trade to debt to youth employment, while the other 7 Goals are quite specific. But it is also partly due to the fact that only MDG 8 talks explicitly of a global compact, while the other 7 does not and partly because MDG 8 is not time-bound, while others are.
Policies and strategies
A review of the policies and strategies in the pre-2015 period highlights some general trends. First, at least during the first half (2000-2005) of the first decade (2000-2010), poverty reduction and the MDGs were pursued as parallel processes. As a result, during that period, in many countries, there were poverty reduction strategies and MDG strategies. It created unproductive confusion, duplication and turf-wars. If the MDGs are long-term objectives of a society to reduce human poverty, they should be an integral part of any poverty reduction strategy. Second, because of the policy and public advocacy, during the second half (2005-2010) of the decade, MDGs were integrated as long-term development objectives of poverty reduction strategies in many countries.
- Synergies among policies
- Integration of poverty reduction and MDG strategies
- Integration of policy framework with resource framework
- Targeted interventions
- Provision of addressing shocks
Resources, institutions and coordination
In the pre-2015 scenario, resources constituted a major constraint to the MDG achievement in a number of countries and in many cases, the whole exercise was dependent on external resource support. In this context, it should also be mentioned that as the MDGs represent a compact between the developing and the developed world, there has been a strong expectation from the developing countries that from the developed world, adequate resources would flow either in the form of official development assistance (ODA), debt-relief, foreign direct investments (FDI) and portfolio investments. Since the later two have gone mostly to middle-income countries, for poor countries, ODA and debt-relief (in the case of highly indebted countries) were the main sources of financing for the MDGs.
- Advocacy for resources for the MDGs
- Revisiting ODA
- Resource envelope in totality
- Beyond financial resources
- Institutional support and coordination
Monitoring progress and gaps and reporting
During the initial five years (2000-2005) right after the Millennium Summit in 2000, there have been a series of activities at the global, regional and country levels for monitoring MDG progress and assessing gaps, with 1990 as the base line. Several MDG global, regional and country reports were produced. While the global and regional reports focused on global and regional trends, the country reports zoomed on country progress and gaps. The monitoring exercise slowed down after 2005 as the implementation issue became more vital. But monitoring will again be a major issue during the 2010 review and thereafter. Three points are pertinent in these respects. First, with regard to MDG monitoring and reporting, there were clear divisions of responsibilities in terms of leading and coordinating global, regional and country MDG Reports. Second, the MDG Country Reports, which were of variable qualities, were supposed to be advocacy documents, rather than serious analytical pieces. In many instances, given the existence of National Human Development Reports (NHDRs), which are more analytical documents, a substantive and operational tension was created in many instances. Third, even though, some of the MDG Country Reports attempted to present disaggregated MDG progress, most of them did not. Thus in most cases, the unevenness of progress within a country and the existence of pockets of deprivations were not unmasked
- Monitoring and assessment framework
- Alignment of data series
- Disaggregation of data
- Statistical capacity development
- MDG Country Reports and National Human Development Reports
Moving forward
As we move towards 2015, there are several measures and initiatives that we can think of and start working on them. They range from goals and targets to policies and strategies to resources.
See also
References
Jahan, Selim. 2009. The Millennium Development Goals Beyond 2015: Issues for Discussion. United Nations Development Programme, New York, USA
