As global poverty lessens and aid increases: Did famed UN development goals matter?
Days before Sept. 11, 2001, a set of eight 'Millennium Development Goals' were declared to improve health, education, and welfare across the planet. As the goals expire on 2015, a sympathetic look at how they fared.
In 1990, a baby born in Bangladesh had a 14 percent chance of dying before reaching her fifth birthday. Today that risk has been cut to below 5 percent.
In 1994, just 12 percent of Ethiopian children completed primary school. Today the figure is nearly 70 percent.
In fact, around the world, the numbers of those living in extreme poverty are less than half of what they were in 1990, according to global indicators.
The reasons for such improvement in areas as diverse as global education, health, and nutrition range from economic booms to settling of political disputes to enlightened leadership. Yet all indicate progress toward what has been a serious set of eight aims called the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), ushered forth in 2001. The effect of the goals has changed a larger discussion about development, moved a significant amount of aid around, and helped with basic living standards for millions.
“I am in dozens of countries every year, and it’s amazing to me how much these goals animate public discussion, newspaper columns, and government leaders’ rhetoric,” Jeffrey Sachs, the director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, told a small audience at the Overseas Development Institute in London in December.
A new World Bank study of MDG's last month showed steady progress in a range of nations, though not all goals were met.
Clear readings on how much has really been achieved since 2001, and how much of the social impact can be attributed to the MDG – is not easy to gauge. There is also a question about whether setting high-profile and ambitious goals has any effect in actually improving difficult world conditions.
Yet with the MDG deadline set to expire in 2015, a consensus among figures like Mr. Sachs and other like-minded broad thinkers is “yes” – setting goals does matter.
Page 1 of 4