It's Over: The Tragedy of the Millennium Development Goals

The United Nations today issued its Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Report 2009. To make a long story short, the accompanying press release says:

The assessment, launched today by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in Geneva, warns that, despite many successes, overall progress has been too slow for most of the targets to be met by 2015.

Let's face it: it's over. The MDGs will not be met (the above statement was based on trends BEFORE the economic crisis hit, see crisis discussion below).

What went wrong? The UN was very successful in getting lots of people interested in global poverty who had not been interested previously. An enormous advocacy campaign resulted (see the video from YouTube above). The enthusiasm of the young and of many public figures was deeply inspiring.

What was the theory of social change behind the advocacy of the MDGs? Political advocacy is most successful when you can identify WHO is to blame for an injustice, and WHY (according to what principle) the situation is unjust. This points to WHAT the WHO should do.

The trinity of WHO/WHY/WHAT worked for positive social change, for example, for movements such as the American Revolution, the abolition of the slave trade, slave emancipation, the extension of the vote to the working class, the women's rights movement, the end of colonialism, the civil rights movement, and gay rights.

WHO is to blame for missing the MDGs? Advocates enthusiastically advertised that 189 leaders signed the Millennium Declaration in 2000, but that was actually a sign of weakness rather than strength. Does an agreement have teeth when EVERYONE agrees -- including many oppressive governments who had no more interest in alleviating poverty than in promoting Brussels sprouts? And if the agreement is broken, how can you find WHO is to blame, when 189 leaders (not to mention dozens of international organizations and NGOs) are COLLECTIVELY responsible?

The WHY and the WHAT were also murky, since there is little consensus on what causes poverty and how to end it. The responsibility is put on governments (see the YouTube video, for example), but the rest is unclear (WHICH one? WHAT should they do?)

The MDGs only content is that certain outcomes should be achieved by 2015, but all of these outcomes depend on many other factors besides government actions. The effect of the current crisis is a case in point. No doubt the crisis will be used as the excuse for the MDG failure (as the UN MDG 2009 report is already doing). But the MDGs' attainment depended all along on global and national economic growth. How can you hold somebody accountable for something they don't control? -- that's not true accountability at all. (Even someone as dense as yours truly pointed out this flaw long before the current crisis came along.)

The inspirational enthusiasm and increased efforts surrounding the MDGs probably did contribute to progress on specific efforts and some partial success stories (mainly in health and education), as pointed out in the UN MDG 2009 report. That can give some hope for the future and some solace to the hard-working and deeply committed participants.

But the point of the MDG campaign was that it precisely defined success and failure using specific goals. So on its own terms, it is a failure.

The MDGs will go down in history as a success in global consciousness-raising, but a failure in using that consciousness for its stated objectives. What a tragedy for all of those who contributed such effort and enthusiasm to the MDG campaign. And a much larger tragedy for the world's poor.

Why waste any more effort on the MDGs, now that we know they will not be met? The next effort should get the WHO/WHY/WHAT clear. Here's one suggestion for starters: the WHO is aid agencies, the WHY principle is that they are responsible for these funds entrusted to them to reach the poor, the WHAT is transparency on whether the funds did reach the poor. It is unjust that funds intended for the poorest of the poor wind up enriching somebody else not poor. Let's have a movement protesting THAT injustice.

Follow William Easterly on Twitter: www.twitter.com/bill_easterly

Comments

[stell]

You have to understand what makes the rich rich, in order to understand what make the poor poor. The West would like nothing more than to have Africa, or a place like Bangladesh to use as a measuring stick. These people do not have self-determination. The MDG were like ever other meaningless initiative put together.

[ephelis]

I agree with what Bill Easterly says here, just not his tone...

Constructive criticism is needed, but so is optimism and hope. We need to acknowledge what has been achieved. Particularly on a site like the Huffington Post that is read by a wide audience, I think economist and other development experts need to provide a more balanced view of both our achievements and our pitfalls.

We have made great strides already. To take an example from Bill Gates, childhood deaths have declined dramatically in the past couple of decades.
+ 1960, 110 million children born, 20 million children under 5 died.
+ 2005, 135 million children born,

[Can-Man]

Easterly says we have no control over these goals. I disagree. And I think that the only way to spend foreign aid money is to:

1. Set bold goals
2. Report on progress.

This is really what we need to do with our own Foreign Aid reform. We need to make it poverty focused. Instead of having 144 priorities and over 400 directives, we should have a single focus, as Canada and the UK do. They make it a poverty focus. Focusing on the poorest means we can make the most progress.

Next, let's involve those whom we intend to benefit. Instead of telling them what they need, let's find out what they need. And let's hire as many nationals to do this work as we can, instead of sending expensive U.S. employees. Let's use local food and other goods, rather than wasting money on more expensive U.S. products that don't help the economies where we are working.

And finally, lets have real accountability. US AID can't even tell Congress what they spent on combatting infant mortality and maternal mortality! And those are programs where specific amounts of money has been appropriated! Let's have the specific goals and steps to get there.

Presumably Easterly would have opposed the goal of getting man on the moon, because it was too difficult, and involved too many factors over which we had "no control." Great argument for excuses, but doesn't help when one wants to accomplish something.

[yenjh]

Bill Easterly is right to challenge the foreign aid community to aspire towards being more efficient and effective with different initiatives and programs and to always be held accountable for where the money goes. But writing blanket statements that aid agencies have failed collectively to achieve the MDGs and that they are the only ones to blame is not helpful. Also it isn't helpful to suggest abandoning the MDGs just because all evidence points to the unlikelihood of achieving them by an arbitrarily set date. The truth is that to date, the MDGs are the best set of guidelines as to what needs to happen in order to rid this world from poverty. We probably will not achieve these goals by 2015, but that doesn't mean we should stop trying. In fact, I believe that this is an opportunity for all of us to focus on what programs are working such as microfinance, universal education and country ownership of programs and re-establish the urgency that with these tools we will fulfill the MDGs as soon as possible. We must put pressure on key decision-makers to support programs that work, not just because time is running short, but because it is the right thing to do. The greatest injustice would be to give up, because it can't be done.

[Kpatterson]

Easterly gets it right regarding what needs to happen with development assistance--we need to assure that aid goes to the very poor, to see that our efforts are transparent and focused on measurable outcomes (like the MDGs), and to assure that aid is not tied to the use of donor nation goods and services. Country ownership is also key. Where he gets it wrong is in lumping all 189 nations together pointing fingers at each other. There are ways to measure whether nations are doing their part to achieve goals via gap analysis (to identify the need) and size of the economy (to determine the contribution needed by each nation). By this measure the US has fallen short. And though it is true that economic development is key in alleviating poverty, so are efforts to pick poor nations off the floor so they can get started on economic development. We've see poverty alleviation efforts like the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria and the Microcredit Summit Campaign help nations make amazing strides. They are the examples we seek. Finally, tossing in the towel in 2009 for goals to be reached in 2015 is only a sign of weak resolve. The Microcredit Summit Campaign set out to reach 100 million of the world's poorest with microfinance by the end of 2005. They didn't throw up their hands when the goal wasn't reached that year, bur persisted until it was reached in 2007. The achievement was just as sweet.

[valkano]

Ah, another opportunity for William Easterly to knock foreign aid. I noticed that he grudgingly admits that advances have been made in health and education. Why do you suppose that is? It's not because we decided to do away with health and education aid in the hope that free markets would somehow translate into better health programs and schools.

Rather than abandoning aid, as Easterly would prescribe, the gains we've made have come from figuring out how to get aid right. A case in point is the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria. The Global Fund provides a massive pool of financial resources to which poor nations can apply. Through a democratic, inclusive and transparent process, each nation determines their needs and the best approach for meeting those needs. Countries are held accountable for achieving measurable goals to keep the money coming. It's a process that's delivered results in millions of lives saved and millions more deaths prevented.

Based on the success of this approach, why not create a Global Fund for Education to help poor countries remove barriers to education like school fees? How about a Global Fund for Micro-entr­epreneurs?

Yes, it's important to improve the overall economies of poor nations through better trade, but we should also help to lay a foundation that ensures the poor won't be left behind when those economies start to flourish. Aid can help when it's done right.

[PathofTotality]

So with 5+ years left, everybody is ready to admit defeat. I find that to be to convenient. Imagine going into you boss and state something along this line!!

My thought is that the 189 persons that signed up are not the "doers" but the upper management for lack of a better term. So they go back to their employees and let them know what they are going to do. Add to this the politics, red tape, planning for the planning..­..........­..........­..........­.....

Instead of the WHO / WHY process how about doing everything possible to complete the task then sit back and evaluate. Then create a "Lessons Learned" and start the cycle over.

I find this stance by the UN very sad and Mr. Easterly, to ask Who, Why and What before it's all over I don't see as good practice. Finish the job or at least try until the bitter end and look at ALL the data.

[drsimon]

He's asking 'why waste time trying to achieve the MDGs because we won't get there by 2015'. BECAUSE EVEN IF IT TAKES A LITTLE LONGER, IT'S THE RIGHT THING TO DO. I'm working on MDG projects in Morocco and Lesotho at present, and believe me, the people out there appreciate the effort

[LMPE]

Maybe if there had been more public discussion of the Millennium Development Goals, we might be further along.

[Michael Strong]

Although there is a wide-ranging debate, the noise about foreign aid and the guilty impulse that drives high profile celebrities and misguided economists to promote foreign aid as a solution has obscured the well-known fact that nations become wealthy by means of entrepeneurial value creation and trade. Easterly's "seekers" vs. "planners" distinction remains as valid as ever; those of us who feel a moral urgency to alleviate poverty should support the creation of sound business environments around the world as well as seeking out those entrepreneurs (for profit, social, and mixed) who are likely to have the greatest positive impact on their nations. We may not know the exact approach to alleviating poverty in a given place, but we do know broad principles of poverty alleviation that are highly reliable. Free market principles leading to economic growth, as advocated by Adam Smith, Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, Peter Bauer, Bill Easterly, and countless others have done more to alleviate poverty than have all so-called anti-poverty programs on earth put together. As Nobel laureate Bob Lucas says, "Once you start thinking about economic growth, it is hard to think about anything else," because in terms of human betterment, there is no more effective large scale approach to improving the lives of billions of human beings. Michael Spence's "Commission on Growth" at the U.N. is an improvement on the Millenium Villages nonsense, but even Spence does not adequately focus on institutions and economic freedom.