Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Report on the Millennium Development Goals
We are now ten years and 2/3 of the way through the 15 year plan established in 2000 to alleviate poverty commonly known as the Millennium Development Goals. There has indeed been significant progress towards these goals; however, it is debatable whether this is because of the MDGs or not. For example, the percentage of global population living below $1.25 has fallen from 46% to 27%, almost achieving the MDG of 23%. But this is due mainly to the drop in China's povery rate from 60% to 16% which has raised at least 400m people out of poverty. It is also nearly impossible to measure progress at the country level. The goals are also severely underfunded. Are the MDGs responsible for improvements in human conditions in the past decade? Should they be extended beyond the time allotted to continue a focus on human development?
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3 comments:
The MDG goals are based on not just alleviating poverty, but aiding other economic and social issues as well. I think if the national governments were given a smaller list of things-to-do to achieve their MDG's - for example, limiting them to just alleviating poverty, it might help in getting funds allocated. When the list is too long, it's a lot harder to legitimize how much financial backing will be necessary, making the list smaller will make implementing the MDG's a lot easier.
I don't think the MDGs have had much impact on improvements in economic well-being in the past decade. The area needed most alleviation of poverty levels, Sub-Saharan villages in Africa, have not seen much decrease in extreme poverty levels. The rapid growth in China and India in the past ten years impacts the data strongly. However, it is less clear what would happen if the MDGs were properly funded. Maybe if countries massively scaled up on aid, the MDGs would actually be met.
@Natasha - I agree that a smaller list would make achieving those specific goals much easier and would improve allocation of funds. However, I think the point of the MDGs is that all of the issues on the list are related: decreasing poverty depends in part on improving education, which also in part determines women's rights, etc. One might say that you cannot do one without the other, at least certainly in the long run.
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