Making Sense of the MDGs

Jan Vandemoortele

Development, 2008, vol. 51, issue 2, 220-227

Abstract: Several misunderstandings have arisen about the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Most widespread is the view that each and every country must achieve the same numerical targets. This is obviously incorrect because the global performance is the aggregate of MDG-plus and MDG-minus countries. Another misconception is that a universal strategy exists for achieving the MDGs. This view contradicts the historical fact that different countries have applied different means towards achieving the same end – namely, human development. A third misunderstanding is that the cost of achieving the MDGs can be determined with precision over a multi-year period. Jan Vandemoortele1 identifies growing disparities within countries as the main reason why the global targets will not be met by 2015. He outlines four practical steps for formulating homegrown and endogenous MDG-based national development strategies. He underscores the need for a new partnership between the rich and the poor, one that is based on ‘ideas changing minds’ rather than on ‘money changing hands’ because a partnership that is primarily based on money is inherently unequal. Development (2008) 51, 220–227. doi:10.1057/dev.2008.7

Date: 2008
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/development/journal/v51/n2/pdf/dev20087a.pdf Link to full text PDF (application/pdf)
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/development/journal/v51/n2/full/dev20087a.html Link to full text HTML (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:develp:v:51:y:2008:i:2:p:220-227

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... es/journal/41301/PS2

Access Statistics for this article

Development is currently edited by Stefano Prato

More articles in Development from Palgrave Macmillan, Society for International Deveopment Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().