ROUNDUP 98 NOVEMBER 2002
MDGs: Moving Forward on
the Millennium Development Goals
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The
Millennium Development Goals, over a relatively short period of
time, have gained tremendous currency, primarily in development circles
but increasingly in related trade and finance circles. Many actors
are now counting on the goals, commonly referred to as the “MDGs,”
to galvanize disparate and sometimes competing development agendas
and are imagining how they might become a powerful political tool
to hold governments and international institutions accountable. During the Millennium Summit held in New York in September 2000,
all 189 UN Member States adopted the Millennium Declaration, which
contained a group of goals and targets, some of which were later
refined through the Roadmap towards the implementation of the United
Nations Millennium Declaration: Report of the Secretary General
to the General Assembly (A/56/326, September 2001), and have since
become known as the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). These eight goals are essentially
centred on national targets for poverty, education, gender equality,
and environmental sustainability, but also include targets for establishing
an international trade and finance policy framework that favours
development. Numerical targets have been set for each goal, most
of which are to be achieved by 2015. Over the last two years, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has taken
a lead in building up political support for the MDGs. This support
was evident during the International Conference on Financing for
Development (FFD, see NGLS Roundup
91) and the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD,
see NGLS Roundup 96), in which the international financial
institutions (IFIs), World Trade Organization (WTO),
UN agencies and scores of governments highlighted their importance.
While some civil society organizations (CSOs) were initially more
circumspect with regard to the MDGs as a concept, they too have
entered the debate and are beginning to explore if and how the MDGs
might fit programmatically into national and international strategies. Headed up by UN Development Programme
(UNDP) Administrator Mark Malloch Brown, Chair of the UN Development
Group (UNDG) and overall head of the MDG campaign, the UN system
is coordinating the three pillars supporting achievement of the
MDGs: reporting (Millennium Reports); campaigning efforts (Millennium
Campaign); and research (Millennium Project). The UN is quick to
point out, however, that it is not the UN that must achieve the
goals but rather societies, governments and institutions pulling
together in the same direction. This Roundup documents the current
terrain of initiatives being developed by the various actors and
some of the issues that are being raised by this growing body of
activity.
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until now, the MDGs have largely been utilized as a tool at the global
level to deepen a discourse about mutual accountability and to secure
the political “buy-in” of governments and relevant development
actors to an “agreed” and concise agenda. However, the bulk
of the work around the MDGs is actually taking place at the country
level with activities including civil society dialogues, local campaigns
and the production of MDG country progress reports, known as Millennium
Reports (MDGRs)
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| Millennium Development Goals and Targets | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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1 Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger Target 1 Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than one dollar a day Target 2 Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people who suffer from 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 Target 18 In cooperation with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies, especially information and communications Source:
Road map towards the implementation of the United Nations Millennium
Declaration, (A/56/326
) Country Reports
As countries have been encouraged to
adapt the MDGs to their national context and priorities, not all countries
are focusing on all eight goals, or the same ones. Some countries
are choosing to turn individual targets into goals. For example, the
report on Viet Nam focuses on targets around hunger and malnutrition,
and access to basic household amenities as independent goals, while
choosing not to examine goal 8—developing a global partnership
for development. Similarly, the report on Poland does not examine
goal 8, and adds a focus area on “Achieving a stable and viable
democratic system, which is supported by majority of the population.”
Bolivia, on the other hand, explores each of the eight main goals,
as does Mauritius. It is expected that every developing and transition economy country
will produce at least one MDGR by the end of 2004. It is not yet
clear what the reporting exercise will be for developed countries. All MDGR country reports can be found online (www.un.org/millenniumgoals/index.html),
as well as the analysis of the indicators outlined in the Road Map
(http://millenniumindicators.un.org).
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| Schedule of Millennium Reporting | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| UN Launches Millennium Campaign | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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UN launched its Millennium Development Goals Campaign on 1 October
2002 with UNDP Administrator Mark Malloch Brown calling for “aggressive
promotion” of the MDGs in order to align the UN system, governments,
parliaments, trade unions, church networks and other civil society
actors behind efforts to achieve the goals. “We are going to
take the best elements of successful campaigns like the land mines
campaign and debt campaign,” Mr. Malloch Brown said, “and
build coalitions at the country and global levels who will fight,
organize, demonstrate and write to Congressmen and Members of Parliament
to take whatever action is required to meet the goals.” Mr. Malloch Brown envisaged that the annual country reporting
exercise would serve as the foundation for a decentralized, nationally
focused campaign by unleashing political momentum within countries.
“When people everywhere can see how their country is doing
compared to next door, they will demand of their government more
access to education and better healthcare.” He went on to say
that the annual reports build evidence for people to take political
change into their own hands. In developed countries this would mean
ensuring that resources are made available through official development
assistance (ODA) commitments, trade access and other policy reforms
in the global political economy. For developing countries, this
should translate into prioritizing social expenditures on education
and health care strategies. UN Appoints Campaign Executive Coordinator
It is expected that part of Ms. Herfken's
job will be to liaise with Northern capitals and build support for
MDG-related work and to work closely with Mark Malloch Brown. She
has said that she will also use her position to continue pressing
for greater coherence among trade, development and finance ministries
within industrialized countries, as well as to support greater cooperation
amongst the UN, BWIs and WTO. In a recent panel on Globalization and
the MDGs (see Go Between 94),
Ms. Herfkens said that the MDGs might also help address what she called
the “compliance deficit,” or the gap between what developing
countries must achieve in order to demonstrate commitment and the
corresponding effort of developed countries. She said a good example
of this was at WTO negotiations where developing countries are being
forced to open their economies while industrialized countries still
lag behind on their own trade reforms. “Perhaps we could hold
up agreements at the WTO against achievement of the MDGs?” she
asked. Millennium Declaration Implementation Report The report, which looks at progress on implementation of the declaration
in its totality, examines both the measurable MDGs as well as broader
objectives like human rights and democracy. On meeting the MDGs, the report states that given current trends,
prospects are decidedly mixed with marked differences between and
within regions. It says that progress in East Asia and parts of
South Asia has been sufficient in recent years “to give hope”—if
it can continue to be made—of broad success in meeting many
or all of the goals. However, progress in Latin America is slow,
while much of sub-Saharan Africa and large parts of Central Asia
are hardly advancing at all—or even worse, are falling back
dramatically. The report warns that global figures can obscure vast
and troubling regional variations and gives the example of the drop
in the global rate of extreme income poverty that has declined largely
as a result of significant progress in East Asia and the Pacific. In the area of universal primary education, the report says that
almost all regions have made progress, but that rates of improvement
are much too slow in many regions to reach the target by 2015. This
is particularly true of sub-Saharan Africa. The Secretary-General
has said that the first major test on implementation will come in
2005, by when parity should be reached on boys' and girls' primary
and secondary enrollment rates. At the current rate the target is
unlikely to be reached, he has warned, as rates in disparity have
only dropped 25% over the last decade. The report concludes that overall progress in implementing the
declaration and achieving the MDGs hinges on creating positive mutually
reinforcing successes in individual areas, and draws connections
between conflict prevention, the spread of infectious disease, poverty
rates and creating sustainable prosperity, saying that the right
mix of national and international policies is critical in this respect. The report points to the recent International Conference on Financing
for Development and the World Summit on Sustainable Development,
as well as the Doha Ministerial of the World Trade Organization
as indications that the international environment may now be more
receptive to such development efforts. It challenges the private
sector, NGOs, philanthropic foundations, academic and cultural institutions
and other parts of civil society to forge a coordinated strategy
with Member States, international institutions and
UN agencies to help move towards greater implementation. The
report can be found online (www.un.org/millenniumgoals/index.html).
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| Millennium Research Project | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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third pillar of the MDGs strategy revolves around the Millennium Project,
a three-year initiative to mobilize networks of scholars from developing
and developed countries to help identify the necessary conditions—in
terms of the right mix of policies, operational priorities, organizational
means of implementation, and financing structures—for countries
to achieve the MDGs. Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Special Advisor to the Secretary-General
on MDGs and Director of the Earth Institute, Columbia University,
will direct the project and oversee the participation of
UN agencies, academics, representatives of government, civil
society and private sector institutions. As an advisory body to the UN, the Millennium Project will report
its findings directly to the UN Secretary-General and the Administrator
of UNDP. The Project itself has
two key advisory groups: the UN Experts Group that oversees UN participation
in the Project, consisting of senior representatives from UN agencies;
and an International Advisory Panel that brings together internationally
recognized experts in the relevant fields to provide independent
advice to the Millennium Project. The bulk of the research will be conducted through ten thematic task forces each looking at a specific group of targets. It is expected that the Project will complete a series of background papers outlining the planned research work of each task force by the end of 2002 and present its first body of data and recommendations via the Human Development Report, due in mid-2003. By the middle of the following year, the Project will offer an interim report to the Secretary-General and the UNDP Administrator, and will present final recommendations by 30 June 2005.
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| Millennium Project Task Forces and Focus Targets | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Millennium Tools, Research, and Experiences | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Given the short life to date of the MDGs as a concept, there is an impressive range of initiatives and resources that have been developed at the national and global levels by the UN system, governments and civil society. The next page provides a listing of some of the best sources of information and resources currently available.
DEV LINK MDG NET MILLENNIUM PROJECT OFFICIAL UN WEBSITE MILLENNIUM INDICATORS OFFICIAL UNDP WEBSITE OTHER UN SYSTEM AGENCY MDG SITES INCLUDE: World Health Organization (WHO) (www.who.int/
mdg/en/) WORLD BANK MDG WEBSITE More websites are in development.
Civil Society Links
CHOIKE (www.choike.org) CONGO EURODAD WEBSITE (www.eurodad.org) INTERACTION WEBSITE (www.interaction.org) WFUNA WEBSITE (www.wfuna.org)
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