Contents of the Chapter:
- Historical Background & the Genesis of the Millennium Development Goals
- MDG Acceleration Framework (MAF)
- Global Goals after 2015
- World MDG Report 201
- MDGs : Achievements & issues
- MDG - India Country Report 2011
Historical Background & the Genesis of the Millennium Development Goals
The period from 1950 to 1980 witnessed economic growth at a
respectable pace across the developing world, which was a radical departure from
the stagnation in the colonial era, but this growth did not translate into
well-being for ordinary people. Further, the era of markets and globalization
(1980 to 2000), belied the expectations and promises of the ideologues. Economic
growth across the developing world, except for China and India, was much slower
and more volatile than the preceding three decades. What is more, there was a
discernible increase in economic inequalities between countries and people,
while poverty and deprivation persisted in large parts of the developing world.
During 1980’s the ‘Washington Consensus’, resting squarely on
neoliberal economic theory, had dominated the international debate (Gsänger
1996a; Eberlei 2000). It found expression above all in the stabilisation and
structural adjustment programs (SAPs) of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)
and the World Bank that provided for consolidation of the current accounts and
budgets of indebted developing countries, continuous and non-interventionist
monetary and fiscal policies and structural market reforms (market opening,
deregulation and privatisation). Poverty reduction was largely equated with
higher economic growth, the assumption being that such growth would, sooner or
later, benefit the poor through trickle-down effects.
In the early 1990s, however, it gradually become apparent
that this assumption was, at least in its then current form, not tenable.
Indeed, in many developing countries – above all in Africa, but also in Latin
America – poverty had even worsened under the SAPs (Decker 2003, 488; Betz 2003,
456). The first Human Development Report (HDR) released by UNDP in 1990 acted as
counter piece to World Banks World development Report (El Masry 2003, 472) as it
argued that economic growth by no means automatically ensured social
development. The Report also critically brought out the one dimensional, purely
economic understanding of poverty that had been in vogue in the development
debate so far.
The disappointing balance of development in the 1980s also
led to the calling, in the early 1990s, of a number of international conferences
in the UN framework that dealt with various aspects of social and ecological
development leading to ‘the decade of world conferences’ .One conference of
particular importance for what was to come was the 1995 Copenhagen World Summit
for Social Development. Among other things, the conference adopted a 10-point
Declaration on Social Development that later formed the basis of the MDGs. At
the end of the decade, there was a large measure of consensus on numerous
development related issues and it was this that paved the way for the adoption
of the Millennium Declaration. In particular, the conferences served to
establish a broad consensus on a common goal system as well as on strategic
approaches for translating it into practice.
In September 2000, the Millennium Declaration was adopted at
the Millennium Summit, held in the framework of the 55th General Assembly of the
United Nations (UN). The summit was attended by the heads of state or government
of nearly all UN member states. In the wake of the Millennium Summit, a joint
working group was constituted with representatives from the UN, the World Bank,
the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and other
international organisations. It extracted a number of measurable targets from
two of the eight chapters of the Millennium Declaration – Chapter 3 “Development
and poverty eradication”) and Chapter 4 (“Protecting our common environment”)
and specified these goals by 18 targets and 48 indicators. Most of the goals are
set to be implemented by 2015. In September 2001, the MDGs were approved by the
56th UN General Assembly. The international community was thus in possession of
a common goal system that has been agreed upon by all relevant actors and that
is both measurable and set to be implemented by a fixed date.
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