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February 22, 2010

It’s 2010! Ten Actionable Ideas (Realized and Yet-to-be-realized) for a 21st-Century Global Development Agenda

Posted by Nancy Birdsall in Global Development Tags: , , , , ,

10 ideasI attended a conference convened and hosted by Jean-Michel Severino, the head of the French bilateral agency, outside Paris last week.  The question participants addressed was: What should be the goals of the international development community in the post-MDG period after 2015?  Should the MDGs be retrofitted and complemented with goals reflecting today’s cross-border “global” challenges:  fragile states, terrorism, pandemics and climate change? What are practical actions to address global goals that go beyond the basic needs of people captured by the MDGs? How would they be measured? Read More…

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October 19, 2009

To Rebrand America, Unbrand Aid

Posted by Ruth Levine in Aid Effectiveness, Global Development Tags: , ,

Bono argues in Sunday’s New York Times that President Obama has already taken major and very welcome steps to “rebrand” America in the eyes of the world. How? By making this statement at the United Nations:

“We will support the Millennium Development Goals, and approach next year’s summit with a global plan to make them a reality. And we will set our sights on the eradication of extreme poverty in our time.” Read More…

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September 2, 2009

Time to Deliver on Duty-Free, Quota-Free Market Access for the World’s Poorest Countries

Posted by Randall Soderquist in Global Development, Trade Tags: , , ,

This blog entry also appeared on the Huffington Post.

Leaders of the world’s richest nations have repeatedly pledged to offer the world’s poorest countries duty-free, quota-free (DFQF) access to their markets. Such access is one of the most powerful tools that high-income countries have to help poor countries to help themselves. The upcoming G-20 summit in Pittsburgh is an opportunity for the world’s leaders to finally deliver on this promise. Read More…

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July 9, 2008

Scrap the G8

Posted by Lawrence MacDonald in Africa, Asia, CGD Initiatives, China, Climate Change, Environment, Food Aid, G8, Global Education, Global Health, Global Health Policy, Global Warming, HIV/AIDS, Migration and Labor Mobility, Millennium Development Goals, News, Regions Tags: , , , ,

Once again the G8 has come up tragically short on climate change and a host of urgent problems affecting poor people in developing countries. The good news is that they are at least discussing the right topics. The first Hokkaido G8 document, on the World Economy spills lots of ink on relations between rich and developing economies, including for example, reaffirmation of support for the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. The next three policy papers — Environment and Climate Change, Development and Africa, and Global Food Security — all address topics that are at the heart of rich world-developing world ties (and, not coincidently, major areas of focus for CGD research and policy work). The bad news is that the G8, representing as it does the interests of the richest societies on the planet, is the wrong forum addressing global problems that touch on well-being of billions of people in the developing world. The lack of legitimacy is evident in the resulting mealy mouthed policy documents.

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April 2, 2008

Robert Zoellick Outlines World Bank Response to Global Economic Situation

Posted by Lawrence MacDonald in Africa, Climate Change, Environment, Food Aid, Global Warming, Globalization, Migration and Labor Mobility, Millennium Development Goals, News, Regions, Trade, World Trade Organization Tags: ,

Robert Zoellick outlined new approaches that the World Bank will take to help solve global problems today in a major speech delivered at an event organized by the Center for Global Development.

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July 6, 2007

Macroeconomics and the MDGs

Posted by Administrator in Debt Relief, International Monetary Fund, Millennium Development Goals Tags: ,

While participating in an interesting and thoughtful eDiscussion organized by the UNDP on Securing Fiscal space for the MDGs, I was struck by how much different approaches to the issue-say between the IMF and the UNDP-are driven by different implicit assumptions about the likely effectiveness of additional spending. Whatever you think about the usefulness of the MDGs as the basis for organizing a development strategy (see Michael Clemens’ blog for a skeptical view) , how to manage the macro-fiscal challenges of scaling-up spending to meet social objectives is highly contentious. The IMF role, in particular, has been criticized by many.

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March 22, 2007

Millennium Development Hole is Evaluation Gap

Posted by Ruth Levine in Millennium Development Goals Tags:

An editorial in today’s issue of Nature takes aim at the development establishment – and fires. “The political commitment to helping the developing world is failing to deliver on its promises,” according to Millennium Development Holes (subscription required). “The problem is made worse by the questionable evaluation of progress.”

Excoriating development agencies for prettying-up defective data on aggregate health and other MDG-related indicators for “pseudo-scientific” estimates of progress since 1990, the commentary then goes for the jugular:

Indeed, the lack of data makes it impossible not only to track progress, but also to assess the effectiveness of measures taken. Has the existence of the MDGs changed pre-existing trends? Are bednets helping to control malaria? Are improvements in Asia down to the MDGs or simply economic growth? Currently, it’s impossible to tell. Meanwhile, spurious claims of achievement are promoted.

The way forward, Nature suggests, is in more, better and independent evaluations:

Funding the scientific evaluation of interventions would pay dividends in enabling rigorous project management. But although billions of dollars are now flowing into aid and disease control, researchers complain that they struggle to get even tiny funds for evidence-based research to assess which interventions work. “If I want 10 tons of DDT it’s no problem; if I want $10,000 to see if the 10 tons made any difference, forget it,” says one malaria researcher.

It is important to take action towards the goals rather than use the lack of reliable information as an excuse for inaction. But investment in an evidence-based approach to aid interventions, assessed independently of the UN, is also essential. Otherwise, in 2015, the MDGs could be buried in history’s graveyard alongside other well-intentioned but failed development efforts.

Interesting in its own right, this unfavorable assessment of the international community’s ability to measure progress and learn from experience carries an implicit warning. As the clock ticks toward the 2015 MDG deadline, such critiques can only grow louder and more potent.

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March 16, 2007

Three Cheers for John Edwards: First Global Poverty Proposal of the ‘08 Presidential Campaigns. Who’s Next?

Posted by Sarah Jane Staats in Advocacy, Aid Effectiveness, Foreign Aid Reform, Fragile States, Global Health, Migration and Labor Mobility, Millennium Development Goals, U.S. Foreign Aid Reform, Weak and Fragile States Tags: ,

John Edwards released the first global poverty proposal of the ‘08 presidential campaigns yesterday. In “Restoring America’s Moral Leadership by Fighting Worldwide Poverty“, Edwards’ campaign says:

John Edwards believes that the United States must be a global leader in the fight against poverty. Solving global poverty is a moral imperative, but it is also a security issue. Global poverty increases the risk to America by providing a safe harbor for instability, extremism, and terrorism. Edwards’ strategy against global poverty will require every weapon in our national security arsenal. For the last six years, too many burdens have been placed on the Department of Defense–not because it has asked for this mission or is the best suited to handle these challenges, but because it has been the most capable and well-funded national security institution.
As president, John Edwards will fundamentally transform America’s approach to the world. He will bring high-level attention to help people in three priority areas: primary education, preventive health, and greater economic and political opportunity.

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November 3, 2006

Development Goals and the Art of the Possible

Posted by Michael Clemens in Aid Effectiveness, Global Health, Globalization, Millennium Development Goals, United Nations, World Trade Organization Tags: ,

The Copenhagen Consensus Project recently asked a group of 24 UN ambassadors and other diplomats to prioritize a list of 40 global development interventions. The US was there. Their interesting report places heath and sanitation on top, with education and hunger somewhat lower. Trade, financial, and environmental policies received lowest priority, due in part to political infeasibility. Bismarck said that politics is the art of the possible; development is largely a political, not a technical problem, and the Copenhagen Consensus group understands that. This approach, which focuses on what is possible in this world instead of what would be possible in an ideal world, is a refreshing alternative to the Millennium Development Goals or MDGs.
Most African countries will miss most of the MDGs. This is not because African governments and international donors are doing nothing good in Africa. Instead, it is primarily because the goals were set without regard to country context, and are thus impossible ( See: What’s Wrong with the Millennium Development Goals?) for many countries to meet. Indiscriminate utopian goals of the past, such as the UN goals for universal primary schooling by 1980 or the UN goal for gender parity in education by 1995, have been abandoned roughly 6 to 8 years before the due date as people come to grips with the reality that change in the developing world is slow and complex. Based on this historical evidence, I guessed in a working paper two years ago that sometime before 2009 the MDGs will be mostly abandoned in favor of some new set of goals.

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September 25, 2006

Poverty is so Hot for Fall (and Why That’s a Good Thing)

Posted by Lindsay Morgan in Africa, Aid Effectiveness, Asia, Commitment to Development Index, Global Education, Global Health, Globalization, Latin America, Migration and Labor Mobility, Millennium Development Goals, News, Regions, Trade, World Trade Organization Tags: ,

Photographed by Michael Dumlao, Produced by Yvette Castro, Styling by Lisa Streeter, hair by Cindy Booth and Shinika Parris, Makeup by Meaghan Ivas: Fair Use under Creative Commons License--Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0When I told my co-workers I was going to an event called “Fashion Fights Poverty” (co-sponsored by the United Nations Association of the National Capital Area), the reaction was a mixture of amusement and interest on the one hand, and distaste and ridicule on the other. Those of us who work in development are apt to react the same way when we see celebrities posing with poor African children. Why does the growing trendiness of poverty make the development community squirm?
The event to promote socially-conscious designers was held at an upscale clothing store in an up-and-coming part of DC. The room was crowded with expensive clothing and photographers. Music played as beautiful people sipped cosmos and passed out copies of the Millennium Development Goals Report (pdf). A young woman in stilettos strutted as if on a catwalk next to a display of beads made by women in rural Uganda.
It’s easy to mock the incongruity of it all. The idea that haute couture can help a family struggling to survive in Bangladesh is the stuff of Stephen Colbert and Saturday Night Live. It’s also an intoxicating change of pace for those of us used to working behind a computer all day (let’s face it: a fashion show is cooler than running regressions).

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April 3, 2006

How the MDGs guarantee failure

Posted by Michael Clemens in Aid Effectiveness, Global Health, Millennium Development Goals Tags:

Nine years from the 2015 deadline of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), it is already clear that these fantastically utopian goals will label many development successes as failures. If you doubt this, look at how the MDGs are being used in some of Africa’s bright spots.
The Kenyan Health Ministry points out that the child mortality rate–which rose substantially under the venal Moi regime–has fallen from 120 to 115 under the new government. This is very good, and steady continuation of such progress should be celebrated. But the Ministry has adopted the impossible MDG of just 32 (number of deaths out of 1000) by 2015. A titanic leap like that is impossible and totally irrelevant to Kenya’s reality. The target was imported uncritically from New York; it guarantees failure.
The authors of the Senegal MDG country report consider it “probable” that Senegal will achieve the MDG of universal primary school completion by 2015. This despite the fact that 43% of primary school age children have never walked into a school, and of those that do enter, 44% drop out before completion. No country in history has ever raised school completion rates at even half that speed, even countries with dramatically more favorable circumstances than Senegal. A target like that ensures failure–not because of bad donors or bad governance, but because of the target itself. How about ignoring the MDG and instead celebrating the steady rise in Senegal’s school enrollments?

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September 28, 2004

Debt Relief and the MDGs

Posted by Administrator in Debt Relief, Inequality, Millennium Development Goals Tags: , ,

By Nancy Birdsall and Milan Vaishnav

This note links the relevance of debt relief to one of the great challenges of our time: achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This is not a new point. Many have written, quite eloquently, on the importance of debt relief for the world’s poorest countries as a way to reduce poverty, end hunger, and improve health and education prospects for the world’s poorest people. In this note we emphasize the contribution that a more predictable, longer-term trajectory of debt relief could make for the poorest countries’ potential to achieve the MDGs.

Access the full commentary (PDF)

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