Download The MDGs have no relevance

Leading Edge 2020: Where
Next for the MDGs?
Olive Moore and Maeve Bateman, Trocaire
Total Interviewees: breakdown by
Country Base
Breakdown by Sector: MDG Analysis
Sector
Academia
Donor
Faith-based
Foundation
IFI
NGO
Network
Think Tank
Breakdown by Sector: Overall
Top Trends – Initial Findings
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Changing Geopolitics: Rise of China, Middle-Income
Countries, BRICs
Climate Change: environmental sustainability
Conflict (resource shortages)
Less resources & support for aid/ODA
Changing climate of aid effectiveness, need to
demonstrate results
Inequality, Migration, Agriculture, Technology
MDGs: Still Relevant?

Approximately half the interviewees to date
believed they were still relevant, though many of
these qualified that statement

A quarter felt they had no relevance

A quarter were ambiguous
Positive attitudes

‘If you want to go quickly, go alone; if you want to
go far, go together. I think of The MDGs as a very
messy go together’
– Network, US

‘The value added is around giving some general
overall goals for everybody to keep their eye.’
-Consultant, Female, Bolivia
Positive Attitudes
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‘It has produced positive external pressure - no
country wants to lag behind.’ –
NGO Director, Female, Malawi
‘‘The MDGs are a simple and clear articulation of
what is required for human development. They are
target-oriented, clear, simple, precise and helpful.’
INGO Director, Male, India
Attitudes: Mixed

‘MDGs provide focus, something for people to rally
around, but like other management targets, they skew
the efforts towards narrow targets.’
INGO Director, Male, Italy

‘While the MDGs are important they miss the point
about how you get there. It’s the wrong starting place
for where we need to be post 2015 but that doesn’t
mean we throw it out at this point, we get what we can
out of it.’
Think Tank, Female, UK
Attitudes: Negative

‘The MDGs have no relevance; they’re poetry. At the
present rate of implementation they will be achieved
in 2155, not 2015.’
Priest and human rights activist, South Africa
Where next? MDGs After 2015
Options:
 Extend the deadline
 Revise/add new indicators and extend the deadline
 New Framework
 Come to an end with no replacement

Difference between what people think should
happen and what they think will happen
What next? Review and Revise
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The need to review and learn from the MDGs was
highlighted by a significant number of interviewees
Inclusion of new targets:
climate change, energy, agriculture
New Actors
New Targets
New Measurement