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

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

‘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 2015Options: 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 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