1 Millennium Development Goals Jan Vandemoortele UNDP, New York.

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Millennium Development Goals

Jan VandemoorteleUNDP, New York

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Three key questions

• Is MDG progress on track?

• Is ‘average’ progress reaching the poor?

• Are MDGs affordable?

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25%27%

31%32%

1990 1993 1996 1999 2015

Actual progress Required progress

Poverty headcount in developing countries

(below $1/day)

16%

4

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

1990 1993 1996 1999

Most regions fail to reduce poverty(below $1/day)

SSASA

EA

LAC

MENA

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12%9%

7% 6%

32%29%

17% 17%

1990 1993 1996 1999

$1/day poverty line National poverty line

Poverty trends in China

6

10391

132

166

223

8378705948

1960 1970 1980 1990 2000

Social progress is slowing down

(all developing countries)

U5MR

NER

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Safe water

Maternal mortality

Child malnutrition

Gender equality

Basic education

Child mortality

HIV/AIDS

Poverty

Achieved To be achieved

No reliable and comparable data

1990 2000 2015

MDG progress in 1990s40%

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1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0

Ghana

Dom. Rep.

Philippines

Colombia

Indonesia

Zimbabwe

Late 1980s Mid/late 1990s

The poor & ‘average’ progress

(ratio of U5MR of bottom to top quintile)

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Progress by-passes the poor

(children not completing 5yrs of education)

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%

Bangladesh(93/94)

Bangladesh(96/97)

Peru (91/92)

Peru (96)

Lowest 40% Middle 40% Top 20%

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Averages are deceiving

Different ways to meet a target• by improving situation of better-off• by increasing level for worse-off• any combination in-between

Evidence suggests most countries follow top-down approach

Groups that see fastest progress seldom represent the poor

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Global cost estimates range from $50b-$100b+ per year

Differences depend on:absolute vs. relative unit costsmarginal vs. average unit costs regional vs. national average costsefficiency gains vs. quality costssavings from synergies implications of HIV/AIDSdomestic vs. external resources

Globally, MDGs are affordable

Are MDGs affordable?

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MDG Core Strategy

Millennium Project

MDG Reports

Millennium Campaign

Operational support

Where do we stand?

What will it take?

How to raise profile and awareness?

What can we do about them?

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Purpose of MDGRPublic advocacy – constituency

Customise targets

Concise assessment, jargon-free, not prescriptive

Based on existing data & analyses

Involving main partners

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Two incorrect conclusions

World is on-track to halving global poverty by 2015

More growth automatically translates into less poverty

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Risk of ‘misplaced concreteness’

Averages and aggregates help us understand complex realities more easily

But they do not exist in reality, only in the human mind

Risk occurs when unwarranted conclusions are drawn based on deductions from abstractions, not on real observations

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“is not whether we add more to the abundance of

those who have much,

it is whether we provide enough for those who

havetoo little”

Test of our progress

FDR, 1937