Learning from the Millennium Development Goals

David Hulme

Creating knowledge to end poverty

Introduction

• MDGs – the world’s biggest promise• Complicated history – not planned• MDGs used to achieve many different aims

1. Strengthen UN credibility

2. Legitimizing the status quo (de-politicization)

3. Improve planning and financing of development

4. Motivating a “results-based” approach

5. Norm change – “ending global poverty”

MDG Summary• Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger• Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education• Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower

women• Goal 4: Reduce child mortality• Goal 5: Improve maternal health• Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other

diseases• Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability• Goal 8: Develop a Global Partnership for

Development

MDGs – HD meets RBM in an unfair world

• The content of the MDGs is human development (5½ out of 8)

• But, a minimalist basic needs concept not human rights

• The framing is results-based management – goal/target/indicator – a low trust concept

• MDGs reflect the IPE of the Millennium – led by rich world with RBM for developing countries but not for rich countries (Goal 8)

• MDG focus - ends not means - reflected lack of an international consensus

Contribution and Attribution• “The end of extreme poverty is at hand…the MDGs…are

bold but achievable…a crucial mid-station on the path to ending poverty by 2025” (Sachs 2005)

• “The setting of utopian goals means aid workers will focus efforts on infeasible tasks, instead of feasible tasks that will do some good” (Easterly 2006)

• “The MDGs: ‘M’ for misunderstood” (Vandemoortele 2007)

• “I do not believe in the MDGs. I think of them as a Major Distracting Gimmick” (Antrobus 2003)

• Attribution paradox – achievement of MDGs mainly because of China and India - where MDGs have least influence/impact!

Understanding the MDGs as Norms

• The MDGs were ‘as good as it gets’ in the international political economy of 2000/2001

• I argue that the evidence indicates that they have been beneficial overall - but limited impact

• The focus on selecting and using them for planning, financing and monitoring is misplaced…’lack of political will’

• Analyse MDGs as a vehicle to promote the international social norm of “ending extreme poverty”…to create political will

International Norm Dynamics

• Comparisons with abolition of slavery, end of apartheid, rules of war (Fukuda-Parr and Hulme)

• Norms can spread across national populations and then countries – can stall and reverse

• Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink’s model – 3 stages

1.Norm emergence, leading to a ‘tipping point’

2.Norm cascade, across countries

3.Norm internalization – the norm is applied

Finnemore and Sikkink

Stage 1

Norm Emergence

Stage 2

Norm Cascade

Stage 3

Norm Internalization

Actors

Norm entrepreneurs

with organizational

platforms

States,

International organizations,

Networks

Law,

Professions,

Bureaucracy

Motives

Altruism,

Empathy,

Ideational

commitment

Legitimacy,

Reputation,

Esteem

Conformity

Dominant

mechanisms Persuasion

Socialization,

Institutionalization,

Demonstration

Habit,

Institutionalization

Stage I: Norm emergence and norm entrepreneurs

• Norm change is driven by norm entrepreneurs with organizational platforms – examples

• Jim Grant (ED, UNICEF) – orchestrated the Children’s Summit (1990) & internalisation

• Nafis Sadik (ED, UNFPA) – managed the paradigm shift to reproductive health (emergence)

• Clare Short/Utstein Group (cascade and internalisation), Ann Pettifor, Martin Khor, and others

• Women’s movement – many norm entrepreneurs who highlighted role of gender inequality in poverty and shaped civil society contributions

MDGs and Norm entrepreneurs (cont.)

• These norm entrepreneurs had diverse motivations, but had a commitment to ending poverty as an ethical imperative.

• Many advocated a broad, human-centred development paradigm, drawing from basic needs, human development and feminist approaches

• Together they drove the UN conference agenda

Message entrepreneurs

• The drafting of the OECD International Development Targets (IDTs) in 1996 and the UN’s MDGs was undertaken by a different set of people: message entrepreneurs

• These were institutionally embedded and they focused on organisational goals.

• Message entrepreneurs have personal normative positions, but their primary function is to achieve consensus (a purpose of many intergovernmental organisations).

Message entrepreneurs (cont.)• In the drafting of the MDGs, these message

entrepreneurs included:– James Michel and officials at DAC in the mid-1990s– John Ruggie and the Office of the Secretary General of the

UN– Mark Malloch Brown, Administrator at UNDP

• Usually skilled diplomats and senior bureaucrats rather than economists or development specialists

• They turned the UN declarations and conference goals into something acceptable across the 189 UN delegations, the World Bank, IMF, OECD, DAC and UN specialised agencies - the MDGs (2001)

• Major negotiations around Goal 8 (in) and reproductive health (out)

Stage II - norm cascade• The MDGs had global consensus, but still the process

of cascade was dependent on follow-up.• Obstacles remained - the US was ambivalent or

hostile; NGOs criticised MDG content and process of formulation; rich countries keen to avoid Goal 8 implementation

• Nonetheless, this was partially overcome. From their launch in September 2001 the MDGs influenced international development events– Monterrey Consensus in 2002 (Bush launches a major

initiative)– Brown and Blair used them in the G8 Gleneagles

summit and EU Presidency in 2005– Celebrities (Bono, Bob Geldof, and Angelina Jolie)

mobilised public support for the MDGs.

Stage III Norm internalization• In policy documents the MDGs appear to have

total acceptance – national and donor goals, General Assembly 2005 and 2010.

• But, in action (budgets, implementation and accountability) internalization has varied.

• UK compared to Italy• Rwanda compared to Zimbabwe• The big success - the MDGs as an emerging EU

norm? – For example, the EU required the states acceding in

2002 to increase their aid budgets to 0.33% of GNI by 2015. A commitment to reducing poverty globally is now a requirement of joining the European ‘club’.

MDGs as a Supernorm

• Sakiko and I use the concept of the MDGs as a ‘supernorm’ - a cluster of interrelated norms grouped into a unified and coherent framework.

• Conceptually, the MDGs constitute a single package; although each of the eight MDGs is important as an individual norm, they are strategic components of the broader supernorm that extreme, dehumanizing poverty is morally unacceptable in an affluent world.

MDGs as a Supernorm (cont.)

• The great strength of the MDG supernorm is its communication of a complex set of norms in clear and relatively simple terms.

• This is also their great weakness…‘too long’• They skirted around and did not resolve

ideational divides within the international community - especially the links between economic and social policy.

• Some norm entrepreneurs saw the MDGs as little more than pretence. Particularly with regard to gender issues and international relations (Goal 8).

The Post-2015 Agenda... Post MDGs

• 2015 will be as complicated as 2000/2001 but very different (the rise of the BICs, energy insecurity, G20, MENA revolution) but also very similar (Doha stalled, climate change stalled, international community fragmented)

• Four particular ways in which the post-2015 agenda can maintain the progress achieved by MDGs and improve on it

Post-2015 Agenda - conclusions

1. From measurement to voice – activate the norm entrepreneurs now

2. Targets and indicators need to be set at the national level – global targets inappropriate for specific countries and negate ‘ownership’ (and democracy)

3. Post-2015 process needs to be linked to policies and plans – not a PRS (WB/IMF) and MDG (rest of UN) divide

4. The Post-2015 Agenda needs to be framed to impact on social norms not as planning tool. How can the global super-norm of the moral unacceptability of extreme poverty be cascaded and internalised…

…stop children dying now…

The Future of the MDGs

• The MDGs can be understood as a part of the emergence of a supernorm that sees extreme poverty in an affluent world as being morally unacceptable.

• Though far from complete, this is changing norms of international behaviour

• Need to frame the post-2015 agenda in terms of norm change

Further reading

• David Hulme (2010) Global Poverty: How Global Governance is Failing the Poor, (London: Routledge).

• Sakiko Fukuda-Parr and David Hulme, (2011), ‘International Norm Dynamics and the “End of Poverty”: Understanding the Millennium Development Goals’, Journal of Global Governance, 17(1), pp. 17-36.

• David Hulme and James Scott, (2010), ‘The Political Economy of the MDGs: Retrospect and Prospect for the World’s Biggest Promise’, New Political Economy, 15(2), pp. 293-306.

Status of the MDGs

MDG Status in latest data

1. Halve extreme poverty Globally on track because of China but unlikely to be met in sub-Saharan Africa.

2. Universal primary

education

Close to target but will probably not be achieved in sub-Saharan Africa and South

Asia.

3. Gender equality Likely to be achieved at primary and secondary school level but other targets are

lagging.

4. Reduce child mortality

by three-quarters

Significant reductions in all regions but three-quarters of countries “off target”.

5. Reduce maternal

mortality by two-thirds

Least progress of all the MDGs with 500,000 pregnancy-related deaths per annum.

Very problematic in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

6. Combat HIV/AIDS,

malaria and other diseases

New HIV infections and AIDS deaths have peaked. HIV/AIDS remains a particular

problem in sub-Saharan Africa. TB rates are falling, but not faster enough to meet the target.

7. Environmental

sustainability

Access to water target likely to be met but sanitation is lagging. Limited progress

with CO2 emissions and deforestation.

8. Develop a global

partnership

No evidence of a step change in relationships. Aid at 1990 levels in 2008. Trade talks

stalled. Climate change – limited progress.