Achieving The Millennium Development Goals

This book provides analytical insights into if and how the targets adopted by the international community are likely to be achieved. A key feature of the analysis is the recognition that most of the MDG targets are endogenously related. These inter-dependencies are crucial not only in analysing the MDGs but also devising strategies.

The Millennium Development Goals, adopted at the UN Millennium Summit in 2000, are the world's targets for dramatically reducing extreme poverty in its many dimensions by 2015 income poverty, hunger, disease, exclusion, lack of infrastructure and shelter while promoting gender equality, education, health and environmental sustainability. These bold goals can be met in all parts of the world if nations follow through on their commitments to work together to meet them. Achieving the Millennium Development Goals offers the prospect of a more secure, just, and prosperous world for all. The UN Millennium Project was commissioned by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan to develop a practical plan of action to meet the Millennium Development Goals. As an independent advisory body directed by Professor Jeffrey D. Sachs, the UN Millennium Project submitted its recommendations to the UN Secretary General in January 2005. The core of the UN Millennium Project's work has been carried out by 10 thematic Task Forces comprising more than 250 experts from around the world, including scientists, development practitioners, parliamentarians, policymakers, and representatives from civil society, UN agencies, the World Bank, the IMF, and the private sector. Investing in Development: A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals brings together the core recommendations of the UN Millennium Project. By outlining practical strategies and approaches to financing the,, the report presents an operational framework that will allow even the poorest countries to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.

This volume provides an up-to-date and detailed tour d'horizon of the exciting diversity of new proposals and mechanisms currently being discussed in order to raise the necessary financial resources to make the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals a reality by 2015. If the MDGs to halve global poverty and significantly improve the conditions of life of the world's poor are to be met on schedule, putting in place the requisite funding is an essential component. The economists in this volume from WIDER, UNDP, and other leading institutions have contributed their analyses as part of the Helsinki Process on Globalisation and Democracy - a high-level multi-stakeholder initiative to develop new approaches to global problem-solving, a global economic agenda and human security. Key resource flows examined include ODA, foreign direct investment, remittances by migrants, commodity export prices, and new ideas to secure sustainable debt relief, including SDRs, debt cancellation, revaluation of IMF gold reserves, debt arbitration, and other proposals. The statistically rich analyses are presented in the context of the complicated trends in global inequality, the incidence of poverty, and the impacts of globalisation. The editors conclude with a thought-provoking set of ideas about the political requirements for effective global economic governance aimed at achieving the MDGs that the world community set itself at the start of the new millennium. The empirical data in this volume and survey of key new ideas for resource mobilisation will be invaluable to all those concerned with global economic governance, including scholars, diplomats, NGO lobbyists, and students studying development economics.

This publication examines the progress made on development issues and related challenges in the Latin American and Caribbean region five years after the Millennium Development Goals and associated targets were agreed by the international community. Focusing on the key theme of inequality, seven chapters consider the following issues: combating poverty and hunger; access to educational opportunities as a pillar of human development; gender equality and women's empowerment; health-related targets; ensuring environmental sustainability; financing aspects of the MDGs and international development assistance.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have contributed to reductions in poverty and improvements in the human condition in many parts of the world since their "invention" in 2000 and 2001. It nonetheless remains the case that today, as on all the previous days of the twenty-first century, almost one billion people will go hungry. Debates about whether the MDGs have made a positive contribution to poverty eradication and/or whether they have achieved as much as they should have done are becoming more frequent as 2015 and the "end of the MDGs" approaches. This book highlights that active debate about what the MDGs have achieved and what that means for the crafting of a post-2015 international framework for action, must become a priority. The work begins by examining the global context of the goals from a variety of perspectives, and moves on to focus on the region that continues to be the most impoverished and which looks likely to fall short of meeting many of the MDGs: Africa. Presenting both a broad overview of the issues and drawing together prestigious scholars and practitioners from a variety of fields, this work provides a significant contribution to debates surrounding both global poverty and the success and future of the MDGs.

With the target date for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) behind us, this book asks did they work? And what happens next? Arguing that to effectively look forward, we must first look back, the editors of this insightful book gather leading scholars and practitioners from a range of backgrounds and regions to provide an in-depth exploration of the MDG project and its impact. Contributors use region-specific case studies to explore the effectiveness of the MDGs in addressing the root causes of poverty, including resource geographies, early childhood development and education, women’s rights and disability rights as well as the impact of the global financial crisis and Arab Spring on MDG attainment. Providing a critical assessment that seeks to inform future policy decisions, the book will be valuable to those working in the development community as well as to academics and students of international development, international relations and development economics.

This study contributes to the current debate on achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), their relevance and what can be done after 2015, by looking at estimates of the cost of reaching the goals in 2015.