The MDG’s vs the SDG’s

In 1996 the Development Assistance Committee of the OECD began a policy review of development, recognising that development costs money and the need for greater financing for development from donors (Clemens, Kenny, and Moss, 2007). In September 2000, at the United Nations (UN), the largest assembly of State heads in history, comprising of 147 presidents, prime ministers and monarchs, unanimously adopted the Millennium Declaration (Clemens, Kenny, and Moss, 2007), known since 2001 as the “world’s biggest promise” (Hulme, 2009): The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). With 21 targets and 60 indicators, the MDGs were a global agreement to use collaborative action to reduce poverty rates and set a framework to measure development progress (Jacob, 2017). 

The MDGs have been praised for their ambitious, simple and integrated nature. The big, broad challenges of halving extreme poverty, achieving universal completion of primary school, and reducing child mortality rates by two-thirds have been collected into a suite of easy to understand, motivational goals (Aryeetey et al., 2012). This understanding of the MDGs comprises the view that the goals should be seen by the development community as a symbol of the types of outcomes they should strive toward (Clemens, Kenny, and Moss, 2007), and has inspired collaboration, resource mobilisation, spurred policy debates, and increased partnerships between the developing and developed world and public and private sectors (Aryeetey et al., 2012).  Another approach to understanding the MDGs is to take the goals as literal targets for the development community. The quantifiable, numerical targets that underpin most of the MDGs enables development progress to be tracked against benchmarks, and acts as a mechanism to increase aid flows and hold donors accountable. Systematic focus on benchmarked progress has increased attention to closing inequality gaps and allowed a wider array of stakeholders, namely from the private sector, to contribute to achieving specific goals and achieve progress at unprecedented historical levels (Aryeetey et al., 2012).  This is considered a major policy win. Moreover, the long-term horizon of the MDGs encouraged governments, institutions and partnerships to envisage long-term policy plans to meet the 2015 deadline. 

While serving as a motivator and acting as a symbol to prompt action and increase aid for development, many studies in the early 2000’s estimated that an extra $40-70 billion resources were needed each year to reach the MDGs (Clemens, Kenny, and Moss, 2007). Consequently, reaching the MDG targets was implausible for many countries. Academics also stressed that, despite the increase in aid, developing countries needed other adequate conditions like economic growth and improved national policies to meet the goals (Clemens, Kenny, and Moss, 2007). The 2002 UN Conference on Financing for Development that occurred in Monterrey, Mexico is credited with officially triggering momentum for the MDGs through affirming an international ODA target of 0.7% of GNI, with this target to be drafted or achieved by 2015 (Aryeetey et al., 2012). This conference was the result of Heads of State and Governments understanding that development starts within developing countries. This points to another flaw in the MDGs. The MDGs were set as global goals with no conceptualisation of national-level potential or historical experience (Jacob, 2017). As a result, several developing countries became pessimistic and were labelled as “failing” to meet the goals. For example, the Burkina Faso government raised primary school enrolment rates faster than developed countries have in the past, yet they are criticised because their enrolment rates remain low against the global goal (Clemens, Kenny, and Moss, 2007). 

Can we change how we measure progress against the MDGs? Rather than treating the MDGs as hard targets to be met, we should reinterpret the goals as outcomes that the development community should strive for (Fukuda-Parr, Greenstein, and Stewart, 2013). If presented as benchmarks, the MDGs would have assisted in highlighting the differences between the world we had and the world we wanted because the reality is that there remains a stark contrast between developing and developed countries. Fuster and Voûte (2005) agree that the main barrier to achieving the MDGs is fragile and fragmented health systems. However, progress is still progress, and the MDGs are rightfully recognised for their role in mobilising the international community, state governments, institutions, and society in recognising the need for development and striving to improve billions of lives.

The idea of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) emerged in the lead up to the 2012 Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development, and it was here that the process to “negotiate and develop consensus on the SDGs” occurred (UN General Assembly, 2012). In part to sustain the moment of the MDGs and continue the unfinished agenda, the SDGs were adopted in September of 2015 as part of the UN’s Agenda 2030 (Kumar, Kumar, and Vivekadhish, 2016). Compared to the MDGs, the SDGs included a long and extensive consultation process including Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), academics and the general public, to provide a people-centred development agenda that is “scientifically robust, politically acceptable, and publicly intuitive” (Morton, Pencheon, and Squires, 2017). 

Including 17 goals and 169 targets, the SDGs build on the MDGs by further integrating development through addressing human rights, equity, and inclusiveness (Kumar, Kumar, and Vivekadhish, 2016), and encompass the three dimensions of sustainable development: economic growth, social inclusion and environmental protection (Morton, Pencheon, and Squires, 2017). The SDG targets are defined as global and ambitious, but unlike the MDGs, the global ambitions are used as a baseline for each government to set their own national targets according to their local circumstances (Spangenberg, 2017). Each member state is also held to account for their obligations and responsibilities in reaching their national targets through the strengthening of global partnerships and inclusion of CSOs, who have a meaningful role in holding governments accountable at the local level. The SDGs also include a robust focus on the means of implementation, including the mobilisation of financial resources, capacity building and data gathering (Morton, Pencheon, and Squires, 2017). To bring this to life, the United Nations Statistical Commission formed the Inter-Agency and Expert Group on SDG Indicators (IAEG-SDGs) to organise a global indicator framework that ensures progress is tracked consistently to identify gaps, allocate resources efficiently and avoid duplication (United Nations Statistical Division, 2021). Nevertheless, the UN still states that countries have the primary responsibility and need to take ownership in developing their frameworks to achieve the goals (Morton, Pencheon, and Squires, 2017).

Controversially, the SDGs have been criticised for their high numbers of goals and targets, likely resulting from the extensive consultation process (Kumar, Kumar, and Vivekadhish, 2016). This has raised concerns for the whole of systems thinking debate; do governments and international agencies have the necessary skills to identify the unintended consequences and deviant outcomes that may result when implementing the SDGs? Experience suggests no (Morton, Pencheon, and Squires, 2017). Regardless, it is still important to recognise the interconnectedness between goals in achieving sustainable development whilst also recognising that governments will address goals differently under their individual national plans. This is further complicated by the measurability of some SDG targets. Not every SDG target has been quantified, and even if every target had two indicators to track progress by, this would result in 338 indicators that need monitoring and reporting (Kumar, Kumar, and Vivekadhish, 2016). Demonstrated best by The Economist (2015), “Having 169 targets is like having no targets at all” when we are depending on an uncertain local capacity to measure progress and the UN can only request quality, accessible and timely data (Morton, Pencheon, and Squires, 2017). Furthermore, the financial concern surrounding the implementation of the SDGs was not abided at a conference on financing for the SDGs held in Addis Ababa in July 2015. A notable outcome was a recommitment to international ODA target of 0.7% of GNI, increasing to 0.15-0.20% for the least developed countries (Kumar, Kumar, and Vivekadhish, 2016). 

Taken together, the means of implementing the SDGs (mobilisation of financial resources, capacity building and data gathering) each have their challenges and give the perspective that, like the MDGs, these goals are implausible. What is needed is immediate international collaboration on climate change and policies that prioritise environmental protection over economic gain. Koehler (2017) argues for an eco-social rationale, instead of a capitalist rationale, where social and climate justice inform and drive social and economic decision-making. This would require that institutions, governments and everyone else change their thinking and settings to favour sustainable development. For example, the SDGs could be refined to include targets on minimum wages, a guaranteed minimum supply of goods including energy and water, and strong industrial policies for a fossil free, light industrial sector (Spangenberg, 2017). Such a reform would actually moderate the pressures of balancing social justice and business profits and help strengthen local health systems. 

The world’s biggest promise, the MDGs, are recognised for their efforts in galvanising resource mobilisation, collaboration and policy debate to address global development challenges such as poverty, universal completion of primary school, and child mortality rates. With quantifiable targets and their long-term horizon, the MDGs encouraged governments and institutions to consider long-term political and financial plans to meet the goals. However, the MDGs are criticised because they failed to consider the local context and combined with their estimated costs, were deemed implausible for most developing countries. Where the MDGs failed, the SDGs did not necessarily prevail. The SDGs maintained the momentum of the development agenda, broadened the goals and allowed implementation to be adapted at the local level, however, the high costs and challenges in implementation remained. Whilst these aspects can probably be addressed post Agenda 2030, what has not been addressed yet is the need for a new global development paradigm that changes the governing rules and conditions for businesses and markets to address the systematic root causes of development inequalities. Without this, we will continue to use policies and promises to address only the symptoms that manifest as a result of fragile and fragmented health systems.

Reference list 

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Clemens, M.A., Kenny, C.J. and Moss, T.J., 2007. The trouble with the MDGs: confronting expectations of aid and development success. World development, 35(5), pp.735-751.

Fukuda-Parr, S., Greenstein, J. and Stewart, D., 2013. How should MDG success and failure be judged: Faster progress or achieving the targets?. World Development, 41, pp.19-30.

Fuster, V. and Voûte, J., 2005. MDGs: chronic diseases are not on the agenda. The Lancet, 366(9496), pp.1512-1514.

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Koehler, G., 2017. The 2030 Agenda and eradicating poverty: New horizons for global social policy?. Global Social Policy, 17(2), pp.210-216.

Kumar, S., Kumar, N. and Vivekadhish, S., 2016. Millennium development goals (MDGS) to sustainable development goals (SDGS): Addressing unfinished agenda and strengthening sustainable development and partnership. Indian journal of community medicine: official publication of Indian Association of Preventive & Social Medicine, 41(1), p.1.

Morton, S., Pencheon, D. and Squires, N., 2017. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and their implementationA national global framework for health, development and equity needs a systems approach at every level. British medical bulletin, pp.1-10.

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The Economist, 2015. The economics of optimism: The debate heats up about what goals the world should set itself for 2030. [online] Available at: <http://www.economist.com/news/finance-andeconomics/21640361-debate-heats-up-about-what-goals-worldshould-set-itself-2030> [Accessed 4 April 2021].

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