Let's start the discussion here.
The reduction to half of the people living in extreme poverty, the decline in a 50 percent of those living in slums and that do not have access to safe drinking water, and the scope of the parity in the access to education between boys and girls, are three of the Millennium Development Goals that have been achieved during the last decade.
The fulfilment of the objectives of the millennium still remains a difficult task, it is still possible, but only if governments comply with their commitments. The secretary-general of the UN, said that the projections indicate that by 2015 more than 600 million people still do not have access to improved water sources, close to one billion live in extreme poverty and hunger will be a global challenge.
Surely the MDGs represent a key issue in development history: for the first time, all international community for development started working in the same direction, increasing efforts coordination and efficiency in aid expenditures. The other great point of the MDGs is that they get a useful and practical handbook out of a UN Declaration, with concrete goals, targets and indicators. This helped a lot international development practitioners.
However, they were accused soon to be full of severe gaps and vacuums, which were allegedly made because of the difficulty of reaching a more detailed and precise agreement between UN member states. Those gaps include, inter alia:
- The MDGs are ‘technocratic’, that is, they consider the development as a matter of good or bad practices, and by doing so, they do NOT place enough emphasis on power relations and political transformations, which are necessary in order to generate development.
- The MDGs were not participatory, as they were elaborated by some experts, without taking into account the opinion of the whole international actors and international civil society.
- The MDGs are extremely donors-centric: “We richer countries know what work” [Jan Vandemoortele]. Let me say that probably, with the severe financial crisis affecting developed countries and the rampant power of the BRICS, this proud (arrogant) spirit would not be the same nowadays.
- The MDGs are not aligned with the Human Rights. This is a major point. Despite the original UN Millennium Declaration purpose was explicitly to make the Right to Development a reality (Chapter V of UN Declaration), the MDGs based on the Declaration didn’t assume this legacy. And even worse, they gave States a perfect framework to demonstrate with tricky (or deliberately misleading) statistics that marvelous advances towards development are being doing; whereas in reality, for instance, the overall number of poor is increasing worldwide; the most vulnerable populations keep on being excluded from basic rights; the indigenous people rights are not considered at all within the MDGs; and the same happens to the “qualitative” aspects of the Right to Education (free, compulsory, of a certain quality), which are missing among the MDGs.
That being said, in my opinion it is clear that a radically new approach is highly necessary to set up the new post-2015 goals. And the new approach has to be a Human Rights-based approach, in order to guarantee that the new goals will be accountable, enforceable (at least, to certain extent), with binding commitments and clear benchmarks for all states (including the developed countries, which seem not to have any clear duty under the current MDGs) and universal. We really can’t talk about development goals without taking into account the Right to Development.
Now, to be fair, we have to recognize that the United Nations (and specially the OHCHR) seem to acknowledge the weaknesses of the MDGs, and some interesting efforts are being made at this regard, in order to shape the new post-2015 goals:
- “Realizing the future we want for all”, a document delivered in June 2012 by the UN System Task Team, states that the core values of the post-2015 agenda will be ‘human rights, equality and sustainability’, with 4 concrete goals: inclusive social development; inclusive economic development; environmental sustainability; and peace and security. Please find out more information at: http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/pdf/Post_2015_UNTTreport.pdf
- High-Level Panel on post-2015 agenda. In July 2012, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced the 27 members of a High-level Panel to advise on the global development framework beyond 2015. The Panel is co-chaired by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia, and former Prime Minister David Cameron of the United Kingdom, and it includes leaders from civil society, private sector and government. (More information at: http://www.un.org/sg/management/hlppost2015.shtml )
- Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). One of the main outcomes of the Rio+20 Conference (June 2012) was the agreement by member States to launch a process to develop a set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which will build upon the Millennium Development Goals and converge with the post 2015 development agenda. Will the SDGs replace the MDG? More information at: http://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/index.php?menu=1300
- A round of consultations, both at national and international level, is actually ongoing in order to collect opinions of different social and institutional stakeholders about how should be shaped the new post-2015 goals. An interesting initiative is that every single citizen can participate in the first worldwide-scale survey where s/he will be asked to prioritize some aspect of development. All of you guys can participate at: http://www.myworld2015.org/ . It takes just 5 minutes; try it!
To sum up: I think we’re going in the right direction. Nevertheless, the history teaches that beyond good intentions, there will have to be a real political will and a deep commitment to finally eradicate poverty. As usual, this will probably be the biggest obstacle in order to make a better world for all.
Sorry guys. I love the subject and I didn’t realize I was going so long.
I know you have some experience in this field and I agree with what you are saying but how do we deal with the political aspect in RtD?
1. How do we convince developed nations that being accountable for RtD is in their best interests as well as for the citizens of developing nations?
2. How do we convince the leaders of developing nations that giving the citizens more rights will help the nation when many of these countries are unwilling to change discriminatory practices and are often more interested in hanging on to power by denying rights instead of hanging on to power democratically?
3. How do we convince leaders of all nations into making investments that will not pay off until the future will make a difference when the political election cycle is usually less than 5 years?
Alex, I agree with you - you rose up the very core-point. Obviously, I don't have clear-cut answers to your questions (I wish I had!). Nevertheless, we cannot ignore that we can do something.
First of all, we cannot see development in a strictly financially profitable perspective. Putting money on Offcial Development Assistance (ODA) is not the same as being an investor or a shareholder. The ODA will pay off in terms of human development (and we know development is not just an economy-based concept).
Second, in a very pragmatic perspective, we can see how most developed countries can guarantee more well being for their citizens by enforcing the rule of law, citizens' rights and democracy. Norway, Sweden, Denmark, New Zealand, etc. assure a better life quality within their territories by strengthening their democratic systems. I consider it highly 'profitable', don't you?
It is clear that it is not easy to achieve those goals. One crucial point is education. The higher people's education level, the more difficult to step over people's rights. Another interesting point we could make is linking development to security. We know that a democratic and developed country is very unlikely to get involved or get affected by war. From my point of view, we should put more efforts on development and education, in order to contribute to reduce war and pandemic terrorism. Once again, if I am right, it might be highly 'profitable'.
Well, these are just some ideas. I don't know if you agree with me.
I agree completely with all of your points, Aram. I think a developing nation who´s leadership is based in the interest of the people can be convinced to promote a HRBA to development.
but it is different trying to convince a Kenya or South Africa as compared to Sudan or Myanmar. My point was refering more to the political aspect in development where sometimes leaders are unwilling to provide freedoms. For example a one party dictatorship who feels their best interest is to suppress rights, for example China or Egypt.
And what about from the developed states political aspect? How can we convince politicians from the USA, Spain, France, UK etc... that it is in their best interest as well to invest in a HRBA if the politicians we are trying to convince will not be in office when the benefits pay off? But not just the politicians, the voters. Living in the United States for many years I can tell you that voters will get angry if they believe a foreign nation building investment project in the long term will not benefit at home. See the US involvement and departure from Afganistan in the 1980´s, and the recent departure from Iraq. (In the Iraq case under the Bush administration, from my experience, there was a lot of political and voter will to stay and develop the nation so that the nobody bad would come to power, but over time it started losing a lot of support, not just because of the death toll but because of the financial cost to the US)
And to address your point on development contributing to reduce violence for example, the majority of voters in the US have never supported any political attempts to invest in Mexico. Now we are arguably seeing consequences from lack of development in Mexico extend into the United States. Imagine if decades ago the US had decided to invest in education in Mexico, it is speculation but I think Mexico would have a lot less problems than they do today. The problem is also not that they didnt invest but that there is no will to do it now either. So I think when you refer to education, we must also educate people in developed states because voters uneducated on a HRBA will not go for it, at least not in the USA.
As was said right at the beginning of the podcast, some of these objectives are “flawed and do more harm than good”. This shows how bona fide initiative is not the only the required element in a major international project, even if it is endorsed on a massive interorganizational scale (UN agencies, WBG, IMF, OECD,…). The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), as a result have been ironically described as ‘Minding Development Gaps’ by Vandemoortele (2011).
The podcast is quite ambitious when it comes to scan over the whole process behind the MDGs and the different chapters included in the same (e.g. at the beginning, Mihir spoke about the flawed, non-participatory process behind it and the omission of ‘equitable’ from the initiative). It is very disappointing to realize how the paradigm of ‘economic growth=development’ has seen itself permeate to MDGs and the various variables which supposedly measure the different goals (e.g. goal nº2, when it refers to ‘fee, compulsory, minimum qualtiy’ primary education; it is hard to believe that 90% of children in the developing world get it). Vandemoortele (2011) criticizes how the measurement of the goals (especially goal nº1) indeed worsens the situation of those people in the lower quintiles because governments prefer to enhance higher statuses in order to increase wealth indicators and how the use of proportions in the indicators (instead of more real and quantitative ones) can prove to be counterproductive to welfare.
The nexus of human rights and development is essential for the MDGs to work. After all, human beings need human solutions, not exclusively ‘technocratic’ ones, as is said in the report ‘Claiming the MDGs’ from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (2006). In relation to human rights, this report clearly states that MDGs and human rights have the ‘common ultimate objective and commitment in promoting human well-being’. But Chapter 5 of the Millennium Declaration has ‘not been mainstreamed’ in the MDGs and this seems to be the main problem with the MDGs. We must also learn to define development as the ‘reaching of higher freedoms’, other than mere economic ones. The world must change its paradigm.
The problem that seems to arise is one which was mentioned by a diplomat responsible for human rights in class the other day: RtD is looked upon as a “collective right”, something which EU Member States dislike to talk about (apart from the right to self-determination and those relative to Indigenous people). Also, this same person added that RtD was a counterproposal by the G77 to stand against initiatives of developed countries (such as trade liberalization or the G8/G20). The aforementioned report from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (2006) writes about how MDGs are sometimes seen in the international framework as ‘political goals’. MDGs and human rights need to be seen as an institution that must go hand-in-hand and not a reason for international scepticism or quarrel.
The only solution is to take a serious human-rights approach, one in which the goals are compatible with human rights (making human rights, in terms of RtD, binding commitments is still very far away) and not in relation with other fraudulent formulae in order to ‘keep the funding cycle going’, thus enhancing the MDGs framework as an ‘instrument of perpetuation of the status quo’. This, of course, requires consensus all around the world (not to be used as a partisan flag) and for that to happen, in my view, major awareness campaigns and information are needed, especially in the diplomatic spheres. I wish to issue a reminder: MDGs cannot be realized on an unilateral basis and human rights should be something that should unite us all (and not something which divides us politically).
The MDG’s do not do a very good job at addressing human rights. There is no direct goal that promotes human rights for everyone, and the benchmarks set forth by the MDG’s (proportion of population below $1.25 for example) allow developing states, and the aid from developed states to be used discriminately on the portion of the population that is already closer to achieving this goal.
The specificity and the ability to measure the goals were a key in the creation of them as Vandemoortele writes. But this specificity, created by developed nations, does nothing to transform the societies and governments that have allowed the permissiveness of a lack of a human rights development framework. There is nothing in the MDG’s that tells a nation that they must lower corruption rates or improve the justice systems or anything that will bring fundamental changes to society. Even if all of the MDG’s were achieved, the same framework that has not enabled the development of human rights will still be in place and what is to stop the nations from regressing to 1990 levels again? The MDG’s are essentially a band-aid when it comes to human rights and do nothing to address the causes of lack of development.
One of the only positives we can take from the MDG’s is that it is the first official global effort of cooperation with specific goals for un-developed nations. But the obvious problem is that the goals seem to address humanitarian needs and not the needs of rights.
After 2015, the hope is obviously that if a new form of MDG’s were created that they be directed towards the restructuring of nations instead of being directed towards humanitarian causes. To do this will also require accountability measures from the developed nations because no state wants to be told what to do. However, I don’t think that a developed state is willing to commit itself to being responsible for the development of a nation if there is not sufficient reward.
Well, maybe for first time I am not the pessimistic one... About the MDGs: They are a good step, a very good step forward to make real the Human Rights. A good step which should be made a few decades ago, just the day after the adoption Of the Universal Declaration of human Rights. Why? Because the HHRR are too much wide. The UDHR is the beautiful objective, but how can we reach it? We can reach it by “small steps” like the MDGs as the necessary tool for establishing the path, the way, for reaching the objectives of the UDHR.
Now, I thing that we may need a kind of “roadmap” for the MDGs in order to have accuracy to develop the MDGs. A roadmap for every point and every region with dates (no "tomorrow") as objectives. With small steps, precise and available objectives we will make the way.
Rembering the famous phrase of Neil Amstrong, We need small steps for reaching giant leaps for mankind.
To add on to my last point that I don´t think a developed state will invest long term if there is not sufficient reward:
The MDG´s do provide developed states short term benefits for short term humanitarian goals. If we want to think longer term for the developing nation we must also think of possibile long and short term incentives for the developing and developed nations that will make them want to promote the RtD.
I think this will generate controversy and isn´t very politically correct and I do not agree with this idea but one possible solution off the top of my head to this problem: go around the United Nations and create bilateral and multilateral agreements between developing and developed nations. Where the developed nation is held financially accountable for developing the RtD but in return they are granted exclusive rights in developing some sectors, such as telecomunications for a fixed amount of time before rights are returned to developing states. And at the same time, as to ensure the same political framework in developing states must change to reflect RtD, the developing nation is held politically accountable for the RtD in that nation where a separate coalition made up of the UN and NGO´s measures progress and leadership will be held accountable to the results. I know this can sound a bit like a return to colonialism where developed nations are held responsible for developing nations and decide who is in charge but it is just one idea. Personally I dont think that this or something similar is the right way to promote RtD because it is very similar to colonialism but it is an idea that is not based in the ideal that states will somehow magically change their institituions for the purpose of RtD and holds states politically and financially accountable for RtD.
How can we incentivize developing and developed states to focus on long term RtD goals while still bringing accountability and short term results for both parties?
Along with Vandermooretelle, I also find the MDGs to be donor-centric and this is my main issue with them. Its not that they are technocratic, that may have been the only way to reach a broad consensus on "universal" goals that would improve living standards across countries that desperately need these changes. The fact that they are donor-centric results in that they do not address the multidimensional nature of poverty, don´t promote structural change and therefore do not result in real, sustainable changes in the long-run which is what we need. Once you look at the MDGs from a Human Rights perspective this becomes all the much more obvious.
Also the fact that the MDGs are technocratic...provides an incentive to use statistics that are easy to manipulate in order to show improvements that may or may not be real for the populations it targets. It seems that the MDGs are at risk of becoming the new "Washington Consensus" and making the same mistakes.
There are many ways in which these can be fixed, but that also takes time, and by 2015 I doubt consensus on future action will be achieved.
Excellent discussion guys. I think we can all se that the MDGs can have certain fantastic benefits. They, at the very least, provide specificity to the concept of progressive realization of rights under the ICESCR. As you know, under the ICESCR, States must realize the rights in a progressive manner. Many States use this idea to wriggle out of their commitments to ensure ICESCR rights. MDGs can help focus the attention to those specific goals within particular timeframes. While we all agree with these benefits of the MDGs, we also realize that this can be successful only if:
1. MDGs inclucate the RtD understanding of development. For that matter, even the Sen idea of Development, which is incorporated now under both the WB and IMF policies in some ways. That is, elements such as extreme poverty meaning more than income, focusing on process aspects also and not only outcome aspects etc.
2. MDGs are at least compatible with human rights. eg. the right to education.
3. Developed countries also have quantifiable golas and benchmarks to achieve them.
As some of you discussed, one of the biggest challenges is with respect to point number 3 above. I think the starting point really is to get everyone on board and have a common understanding among all actors on what the nature of the MDGs is. It was never meant to be, and will probably never be, a legally binding document. These goals are political, and even moral, goals. If that is correct, then there is no reason why quantifiable goals and benchmarks can't be added for developed countries. No one is going to sue them before an international court for non-fulfllment of their part of the goals, in the same way that no developing country is going to be sued either. Modifying Goal 8, to my mind, should really be the first step. That way, we have morally appropriate goals to hold on to in order to channel the polcies in the proper manner.
I think the biggest challenge for the post-2015 MDGs will be exactly this. The new committee, apart from ensuring that human rights are mainstreamed in the new MDGs, must change Goal 8. And they don't need a radically new framework for doing that. One of the principal aims of the Millennium Declaration was to make the right to development a reality for everyone. All that the new committee needs to do is to adopt a RtD approach to MDGs. The indicators, criteria and sub-criteria are already developed for RtD, as we saw in session two. At the minimum, that would be a good start.