No Goals at Half-time: What Next for the Millennium Development Goals?
Development experts delivered a mixed verdict on the validity and progress of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and suggested further action at the No Goals at Half-time: What Next for the Millennium Development Goals? conference. They explored how to combine their diverse academic disciplines in new ways to help achieve a more integrated approach to the global development framework. The event organised by the London International Development Centre (LIDC) and held at Birkbeck on 5 November 2008 was a timely assessment of the MDGs at the mid-point towards their target date of 2015.
Scroll down this page for podcasts from the conference. Click here for reports and PowerPoints.
This presentation covered three areas: 1) a short history of the MDGs and their rationale, 2) progress on MDG8 (ODA, debt relief and access to markets), and 3) current challenges in light of the financial crisis and the projected economic downturn.
The MDG framework adopts a broad human development approach that has set ambitious targets that are attainable. But progress on MDG8 has not been sufficient to help attain these targets. ODA has faltered and fallen in 2006-2007, implying that it would have to be dramatically scaled up to reach 2010 targets. While there has been significant progress on debt relief, many countries remain at risk of falling back into debt distress, especially in light of the current crisis. And there has been only negligible progress on widening developing-country access to rich-country markets. The support that rich countries provide to their agricultural sector each year is more than three time higher than the ODA that they provide to developing countries. In the face of financial crisis and an impending global slowdown, progress on the MDGs will obviously become more difficult. While Asia is likely to continue growing (though more slowly), regions, such as Latin America, that are tied closely to the US economy will suffer and Africa will be the hardest hit. We have to continue the focus on Africa and emphasise achievable goals, such as further debt relief and the removal of agricultural subsidies. ODA has to be become more coordinated and effective and exploit the synergies in adopting an integrated cross-sectoral approach.
Read on to read a full report of the presentation.
Last Updated ( Tuesday, 23 June 2009 23:03 )
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The MDG1 targets aim to reduce poverty and hunger and increase gainful employment. Although there are substantial data and methodological difficulties in tracking the targets, it is clear that despite some significant achievements they will be missed in many parts of the world in 2015. It is very important to understand these achievements and failures, and their respective causes. Agriculture and food are critical to MDG1 in a number of ways, particularly in areas where progress has already been slow. There are major new challenges here, and important questions about the roles of states and markets in agricultural growth in poor economies.
Read on to read a full report of the presentation.
Last Updated ( Tuesday, 23 June 2009 23:03 )
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MDG 2, the achievement of universal primary education, has a target of ensuring that by 2015 children everywhere will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling. Net enrolment ratios have increased, with notable regional increases in sub-Saharan Africa and South and West Asia. However, regional ratios disguise wide variations between countries. National ratios disguise variations in enrolment patterns across the grades of primary education and in the enrolment by grade patterns by income group, gender and location. Many educational challenges remain, not least the provision of 18 million additional teachers if the 2015 goals are to be reached. This presentation underlines the inter-relations between the MDGs. It concludes by asking whether global partnerships are adequate to the task of providing integrated, horizontally coordinated and simultaneous action across sectors at the points where it is most needed - children, households and communities.
Read on to read a full report of the presentation.
Last Updated ( Tuesday, 23 June 2009 23:03 )
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This presentation looked at the ways in which MDG3 was conceptualised as foundational to the other MDGs with an earlier target date. It highlights the debate as to whether this position enabled the MDG project to take a global agenda for women's rights further or contributed to a fracturing of the alliances built in the wake of the Beijing conference in 1995. In reviewing the limited progress made against the indicators and the significance of some key aspects of women's inequality for which there are no indicators, notably the levels of violence against women, this presentation posed the question as to what type of opportunity MDG3 offers to understand and monitor gender equality and the empowerment of women worldwide.
Read on to read a full report of the presentation.
Last Updated ( Monday, 29 June 2009 23:54 )
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The intensity of international efforts to reduce child mortality has varied since global child mortality data became available. During the 1980s UNICEF spearheaded a “Child Survival Revolution” focused on simple, mainly vertical, interventions, yet in the 1990s interest waned as UNICEF focused on other issues and child survival seemed to disappear from WHO’s agenda. The MDGs have given renewed energy to the child survival movement, especially MDG4’s target to reduce under-five mortality by two-thirds. This is meant to be a global and regional goal, not a country-level goal. It may be particularly unfair for Africa, which starts from a much higher baseline. There is an irresistible trend with donors towards country-level vertical strategies and the inevitable result is growing inequity in child survival. Like all quantitative goals, the MDGs are likely to lead to distortions in reported data, particularly in the neonatal mortality field, where existing data are notoriously unreliable.
Read on to read a full report of the presentation.
Last Updated ( Monday, 29 June 2009 23:54 )
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Delivering a baby can be a time of great celebration, but is also a time of great risk. Two-fifths of maternal deaths occur from the start of labour until 24 hours later. Every minute a woman dies in childbirth or from complications during pregnancy. The current slow progress in achieving MDG 5’s target to reduce maternal mortality by three-quarters requires us to speed up the provision of good quality delivery care. There are also huge differences in coverage of such care between and within countries. Maternal mortality is the public health indicator with the greatest gap between rich and poor countries, with 99 per cent of deaths in the developing world. Even in poor countries, the richest women have much greater access to services than rural women. The potential gains from expanding quality delivery facilities are enormous and extend to improvements in neonatal survival. We need to renew our commitment to meeting this priority.
Last Updated ( Monday, 29 June 2009 23:55 )
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Progress is being made to achieve the targets for MDG 6 but there is more work to be done. Global trends for HIV show that the epidemic is beginning to plateau but the need for treatment and prevention continues to outpace current interventions. Malaria interventions with bed-nets and appropriate anti-malarial treatment for children under five are making inroads into reducing deaths. The global incidence of tuberculosis (TB) is levelling off but TB control strategies (DOTS) will need to be accelerated in sub-Saharan Africa and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) if the global targets are to be achieved by 2015. Important themes of poverty, health systems and inter-sectoral collaboration are emerging as foci for future approaches to communicable disease control strategies. These interlinking themes will help to relate each of the MDGs to the overall goal of improving health worldwide.
Last Updated ( Monday, 29 June 2009 23:55 )
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This presentation provided some basic definitions of environmental sustainability. It also identified the players that can determine the pace at which sustainability may be achieved. It was shown that there are a number of different ways of 'knowing' sustainability and 'doing something about' bringing it about. The role of consumption was highlighted, and the challenges of changing behaviour in both the South and the North. This framework contributed to the analysis of MDG 7 and provided an explanation of outcomes and the basis of a critique. The review focused on water - on both water resources and on water supply and sanitation. It was shown that the MDG targets are not being met in many countries in Africa. Problems of getting resources mobilised effectively were exemplified at many administrative and social levels. The importance of deploying international assistance by fully and effectively engaged intermediaries such as WaterAid was also noted.
Read on to read a full report of the presentation.
Last Updated ( Monday, 29 June 2009 23:56 )
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