Reaching the United Nations Millennium Development Goals 2015. World Vision

Reaching the MDGs 2.0:Rethinking the politics

A World Vision International

policy briefingSeptember 2011

© World Vision International 2011

ISBN 978-1-887983-92-1

All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced in any form, except for brief excerpts in reviews, without prior permission of the publisher.

Published by Advocacy & Justice for Children on behalf of World Vision International

For further information about this publication or World Vision International publications, or for additional copies of this publication, please contact [email protected].

Commissioning Editor: Kirsty Nowlan. Author: What World Strategies http://whatworld.org/. Senior Editor: Heather Elliott. Production: Ann Abraham, Katie Klopman. Copyeditor: Joan Weber Laflamme. Creative Direction: Rebekah Roose. Design & Layout: Alice Contreras. Proofreading: Jenelle D’Alessandro.

Cover photo © World Vision/Andrea Dearborn.

Cover photo caption: Four cousins, whose parents died from AIDS-related illnesses, return home to their grandmother after fetching water at a borehole constructed by World Vision in a village in Zambia.

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Contents

Introduction ................................................................................................................................................................2

Part one: Factors affecting the formation of the MDGs ..................................3

1. Economic and political contexts compared ..................................................................................................................3

2. A question of political will .................................................................................................................................................4

3. The four fundamentals .......................................................................................................................................................5

Part two: The state of the post-2015 debate: Review and analysis ......7

1. Tenor of the debate ............................................................................................................................................................7

2. Timing and complexity .......................................................................................................................................................8

3. UN leadership ......................................................................................................................................................................8

4. Multitude of processes .......................................................................................................................................................8

5. Multitude of options ...........................................................................................................................................................9

6. Mapping of active participants and initiatives .............................................................................................................10

7. Missing in action ................................................................................................................................................................. 11

8. The role of civil society ....................................................................................................................................................13

Conclusion ...............................................................................................................................................................................13

Part three: Priority areas for the next five years ....................................................16

1. Coherence ...........................................................................................................................................................................16

2. Buy-in ....................................................................................................................................................................................16

Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................................................18

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IntroductionIn 2015, four short years from now, the current set of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) comes to an end. Whether it becomes a one-off international project not to be repeated, gets regurgitated in an extended set of goals, or develops into a fully fledged development framework depends on the actions of governments, multilateral institutions and civil society over the next few years. Given the bleak current economic and political outlook, an enormous effort is needed to ensure that the international community adopts an even more ambitious strategy to deliver sustainable development.

As an international development agency active in over 100 countries, World Vision International understands the importance of a strong, coherent development strategy to replace the current set of MDGs in 2015. It has commissioned this review of the current state of the post-2015 MDG debate to take the pulse of the international community and the key stakeholders in achieving this goal.

This paper first looks at the political and economic context in which the first set of MDGs was formed and contrasts it to the current situation to underline the drastic changes over the past eleven years. It then lays out the scenarios likely to determine the scope of the next generation and argues that there are four critical components that will determine the ambitions and scope of any successor set of global goals: political leadership; policy coherence at the global level and global cooperation (effective mechanisms for joint agreements); civil society cohesion; and finally, the global economic situation.

The second part of the paper reviews the current post-2015 framework to understand the state of the debate and where the four fundamentals are in terms of the success of the next generation of MDGs. Finally, the third part of the paper presents a number of areas of priority and recommendations for civil society players committed to delivering an ambitious set of goals.

Fundamentally, this position paper argues that the international community needs to focus at least as much, if not more, on the politics of the MDGs as on the policy. This review shows, however, that to date the discussion of possible post-2015 MDGs appear to be focused entirely on the content of the MDGs rather than the politics of how we obtain an international commitment to achieve any given set of targets. This paper argues that this imbalance must be addressed, that organisations aiming for an ambitious and robust new framework must put more time and resources into the politics of the MDGs. Given the short time line, the dire global economic outlook and the fast-changing international political arena, the politics of the process will determine the scope of the next set of MDGs, if there is any successor at all.

In summary, the next set of MDGs will be forged in the political arena, in the corridors of multilateral institutions and governments, not in the conference rooms and seminars of the global policy community. The focus for the next three years must be on ‘how’ rather than ‘what’.

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Part one

Factors affecting the formation of the MDGs

To understand the critical importance of the political and economic context for the MDGs, it is useful to review the landscape of the first set of MDGs and then contrast it with the current situation. This underlines the significant challenges faced for achieving a global consensus.

1. Economic and political contexts compared

1.1 2000: The first generation

The Dow Jones index of US stocks grew from 3,600 in 1994 to over 11,000 in 2000, unemployment in America was at 4 per cent, and the gross domestic product (GDP) was growing at a rate of 5 per cent. In other words, Western economies were booming. The value of ‘dot com’ stocks was sky-rocketing, the result, it was thought, of a new era of growth brought about by technical innovation (which later turned out to be a just a regular bubble). In addition, property prices increased by double-digit percentage points.

The dominant grouping of states (the Group of Seven, G7) began to explore some of the issues of poverty through its debt-relief plan for low-income countries. The new grouping of emerging countries – BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) – had not yet been coined by Goldman Sachs. The Asian tiger was still licking its wounds from the crash of 1997, and Japan was struggling with a decade of lost growth.

The World Bank was shifting its approach from a structural adjustment programme to Poverty Reduction Strategies. The emphasis was on addressing gaps in growth and development, that is, on those failing to reap the benefits of globalisation. Two world leaders, Bill Clinton in the United States and Tony Blair in the UK were pursuing the ‘Third Way’, bringing social values to capitalism, and were willing to put their political capital behind the global fight against poverty by prioritising development in global gatherings. People living in poverty had strong champions.

Throughout the 1990s the global community worked to forge consensus on a global approach to development policies. The Rio Conference in 1992, the Beijing Conference on Women in 1995 and the Commission on Social Development in 2000 all contributed to the development of the MDG policy framework. In 1995 a meeting of international development ministers commissioned the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to undertake a retrospective assessment of the last half-century of development; this resulted in the 1996 paper entitled ‘Shaping the 21st Century’, which was a ‘set of concrete, medium-term goals, all based on the recommendations of major United Nations conferences, to be pursued on the basis of agreed principles’.1 The conferences and the report set the stage for the first global coordinated targets in the attack on poverty.

This was the economic and political reality when world leaders met in New York in September 2000; the mood was optimistic, and leaders were willing to put their names to a forward-looking document that would set a vision for the international community.

1 James Michel, ‘The birth of the MDGs’, DACNews, Sept-Oct 2005. Accessed on 11 December 2010 at http://www.oecd.org/document/34/0,2340,en_2649_33721_35295778_1_1_1_1,00.html.


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1.2 2011: The next generation

A decade later, the global political and economic situation has undergone substantial change. The perceived growth and success of the new century’s first decade turned out to be a large bubble of consumer spending based on borrowed money. The financial crisis of 2008 has fundamentally changed global prospects, global politics and global governance. Chaos theory posits that a butterfly flapping its wings in Canada can cause a storm in Sri Lanka, and so the lending policy of a bank in Alabama affected the fight against poverty in sub-Saharan Africa.

Today, Western economies are running record deficits. The European Union (EU) is facing crisis as the deteriorating financial situation of eurozone members puts pressure on the banking system and demands further government bail-outs. The United States has expanded its debt to record levels as it intervened in the market to save its financial sector and the automobile industry. Unemployment levels in the United States have more than doubled, to just under 10 per cent,2 while many Western economies are facing a double-digit recession. There is increasing concern about public support for foreign aid and achieving international poverty targets. While the UK has ‘ring-fenced’ its ODA (official development assistance) budget and says it will meet the 0.7 per cent target by 2013, most other Group of Eight (G8) countries are going in the opposite direction. Italy, France and Japan have cut their ODA budgets, while Canada’s ODA will decrease as a percentage of gross national income (GNI).

Meanwhile, the global financial crisis has badly affected developing countries and their ability to make progress on the MDGs. A report by UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund, reviewed the budgets of 126 low-income countries and found that 44 per cent were reducing aggregate government spending in 2010–11 over 2008–9 spending; half were cutting spending by an average of 6.9 per cent.3 Such drastic reductions will certainly affect social spending on education, health and other key sectors of the economy.

The ability to make global agreements is crumbling as countries bicker about different approaches to global economic strategies in the post-Washington Consensus era. The G7 became the G8 with the inclusion of Russia but was surpassed as the pre-eminent political forum by the newly upgraded G20. The G20 has yet to prove itself as a forum to resolve global problems. Indeed, it is in jeopardy of deteriorating into confrontations over issues such a currency rates and trade barriers.

The shift in the global power balance over the past ten years has been stunning. It was powerfully exposed during the Copenhagen negotiation on climate change that took place in December 2009. With the negotiations faltering, the Chinese premier sent a deputy to undertake negotiations with the US president, UK prime minister and German chancellor, amongst others. The final Copenhagen Accord was negotiated by a small group of countries including China, South Africa, Brazil, India and the United States, the last the only G8 country present.

2. A question of political will

With the first set of MDGs there was the political will at the international level for an over-arching set of goals to serve as a rallying call to the global community. That is not the case with the second set. The dwindling aid levels in the 1990s contrasted starkly with the booming economies of the Western donors. There was a need for a strong narrative to deliver a rationale to the public for increased development spending.

2 US unemployment stood at 9.6 per cent in August 2010, up from 4.0 per cent in August 2000. Accessed on 15 October 2010 at http://www.tradingeconomics.com/.3 Chai Ortiz and Vergara Cummins, ‘Prioritizing Expenditures for a Recovery for All: A Rapid Review of Public Expenditures in 126 Developing Countries’ (UNICEF,

October 2010), 3.


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David Hulme and James Scott,4 who give an excellent account of the birth of the first set of MDGs, underline that the UN, World Bank and OECD agreed to one set of targets. The process, driven by the UN Secretary-General with the support of the development ministers of the Utstein Group (Germany, UK, Norway and the Netherlands), created the momentum and drive that delivered the MDGs.

Today, there is less evidence of the necessary political will to deliver a new set of goals. There appears to be a vacuum at the centre of the post-2015 framework; there is no central agency, whether the UN Secretary-General or other agency, driving the process. Added to this, Western governments are struggling to defend their current aid levels in a time of austerity and low growth. The need for a narrative, although never greater, is not at the top of the Western political agenda.

3. The four fundamentals

As the political and economic review shows, the current set of MDGs will be forged in a vastly different context than the previous set. For those interested in an ambitious set of targets, the most difficult element will be balancing that ambition against the reality of what is politically achievable. Taking the lessons learned from the first generation, it is possible to plot the type of MDGs agreed in 2015 on a chart that plots ambition against two variables: economic outlook and international cooperation.

The first set of MDGs could be plotted on the top right quadrant of the chart. The global economy was booming, globalisation was benefiting major donors, and the economic future was bright. In addition, international cooperation amongst the G8 countries – the major players in the debate – was high: the Utstein Group of development ministers were working together; the G8 had cooperated on a debt-relief programme, and, while stymied at the negotiations, countries had come to broad agreement on the World Trade Organization (WTO) round of negotiations. Civil society was strong and vocal: the Jubilee movement was successfully moving politicians to support debt relief, and on the more confrontational side, anti-globalisation protesters were blocking summits in Seattle and Washington. The four fundamentals were in position to deliver an ambitious and ground-breaking result.

4 David Hulme and James Scott, ‘The Political Economy of the MDGs: Retrospect and Prospects for the World’s Biggest Promise’, Brooks World Poverty Institute, University of Manchester, January 2010.

Strong International Cooperation

Weak International Cooperation

Weak Economic Outlook

Strong Economic Outlook

Ambitious

Tinkering

Experimental

Abandoned


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Using this lens, there are four possible scenarios for the next generation of MDGs: experimental, ambitious, tinkering and abandoned. If there is a strong economy and strong integration at the global level, then the next set of MDGs is likely to be ambitious. If the economy is not strong but countries are willing to explore new innovations to help support development, then the MDGs may be truly interesting and experimental. However, if the economy is weak and governments are unwilling to come together to address these global issues, then the likelihood is that the MDGs will be not be renewed. Equally, if the economy is picking up but there is little cooperation internationally, then some countries may be willing to tinker with the current set of MDGs but there will not be the global ‘buy-in’ necessary to create an ambitious set of goals.

Therefore, it is paramount for those advocating for strong, ambitious and achievable targets to focus perhaps more on the political and economic variables as well as the policy proposals themselves. This paper argues that organisations need to focus on building on the four fundamentals of the MDGs: economics, political leadership, international policy coherence and public mobilisation. These four factors will be the mix that creates the next version of MDGs. Effective and robust public mobilisation can help deliver political leadership. Strong political leadership will help overcome a weak economic outlook and address poor international cooperation and coherence.

These factors are the lens through which the current MDG debate must be viewed. They will map out the road ahead for civil society work: where there are gaps and opportunities for the NGO community to push the international community into more progressive options. With this in mind, it is time to look at the current state of the post-MDG debate, the actors, the processes and the policy options.

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Part two

The state of the post-2015 debate: Review and analysisAs expected, the 2010 UN MDG Summit acted as a starting gun for ‘MDGs 2.0’. The outcome document of the summit gave the UN Secretary-General a mandate to begin the discussion, requesting the Secretary-General to consider ‘further steps to advance the United Nations development agenda beyond 2015’. As a result, Ban Ki-Moon stated his intention to ‘look at the post-2015 picture’. The summit also gave the international community the mandate to discuss openly the development agenda after 2015. Thus, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), think tanks and UN agencies are now openly debating possible agendas, goals and approaches in a myriad of papers, seminars and debates.

1. Tenor of the debate

Since the September 2010 meeting and the opening of the discussions, there has been a subtle change in the tenor of the debate. The fallout from the global financial crisis is influencing the approaches to the next generation of MDGs. While there are proposals about expanding the MDGs, adding new goals, or taking a completely new One World approach, overall, there is more caution amongst key players and even discussions about whether there will be any new framework at all. A senior United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) official has commented that it cannot be assumed that there will be any desire from countries for a new framework. Andy Sumner, one of the leading thinkers on this issue, has posited that merely extending the 2015 deadline may be easier to agree to than other options.

The aid debate is also having an impact. There is a widespread acceptance that the next edition of the MDGs will have to be less reliant on traditional aid inputs. There is more space for innovative financing and development that comes from economic growth. At a seminar on the post-2015 debate convened by the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) and the Red Cross, there was agreement on the ‘need to abandon an aid-based approach to development...’. It seems aid is no longer the answer.

One of the strongest emerging issues is the role of middle-income countries (MICs) and Southern voices. While it has always been argued that the next set of MDGs must be determined in a cooperative and inclusive fashion (as opposed to the New York–driven 2000 edition), there is real concern that missing MICs would seriously set back any new framework. This is due to the economic realities – MICs are key players in global development – but also because new development theory argues that the majority of the poor live not in the least developed countries but in the MICs. As a result, the new MDGs need to take into account these demographics.

Related to this argument is the stress on the importance of national or regional targets rather than on ‘one size fits all’ global targets. Groups evaluating the current set of MDGs see this as an important element to address some of the failures of the first MDGs, but it also reflects the increasing autonomy of the MICs, which will no longer abide by an externally imposed set of targets.

Finally, there is renewed focus on including the voices of the poor in the development debate. Several groups are examining the possibility of undertaking global surveys.

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The state of the post-2015 debate: Review and analysis

2. Timing and complexity

While it was entirely correct to wait until the five-year review of the MDGs in September 2010 to work on the next set of MDGs, doing so does mean that the time to draft, negotiate and implement the next set of MDGs is tight. The outcome document of the UN MDG Summit requested that the General Assembly hold another review MDG Summit in 2013, now commonly understood to be the deadline for coming up with the proposal for the successor to the current MDGs. This gives the international community less than two years to develop, debate and get initial buy-in from the global community. Given that the original set of MDGs was developed over a decade with numerous international conferences and summits to iron out disagreements and forge consensus, the task for the next generation is extremely difficult. Added to this are more complex international decision-making forums and new issues to be included. Andy Sumner and Meera Tiwari summed up the complexity very well:

The MDGs took ten years – a decade of momentum – and a small group of ‘insiders’ backed by powerful actors to get them off the ground. The context has now changed: there are more MIC and a much greater range of donors and opportunities to raise funds... . In addition, there is a rise in the importance of the G20; a difficult context post-crisis...for aid/public expenditures; risks of climate change to sustaining the progress achieved in the MDGs; and demographic change.5

These multiple stakeholders, new issues and emerging power brokers underline the importance of political analysis of the post-2015 discussions. If there is to be a strong consensus emerging in the next two years, the negotiations will need strong steering.

3. UN leadership

Civil society actors, think tanks and UN agencies are all agreed that the UN will be the central organisation in the process. They underline that it will be up to the Secretary-General and his office to oversee the process and make the final proposal to member states. This is based on both idealism and realities; addressing both sides, a commentator at the CIGI/Red Cross seminar stated that in terms of legitimacy the exercise must be embedded in the UN and added that the UN’s central role is important because it is impossible to overemphasise the UN’s capacity for jealousy.

The UN’s own process is not entirely transparent. Indeed, one senior UNDP official commented that the state of the debate was extremely muddled and unclear. It had been expected that the UN Secretary-General would announce a process at the 2010 September summit that would steer the debate through the complexities of global negotiations. Indeed, there were rumours at the time that former Brazilian president Lula da Silva would lead this commission. However, there was no announcement at the 2010 summit or since. It is again expected that the UN Secretary-General will make an announcement during the 2011 September General Assembly which will finally kick-start the political process.

4. Multitude of processes

While the process of agreeing on the next generation of MDGs will be ‘owned’ by the UN (see the next section), there is a complex array of meetings that will be instrumental in guiding and deciding elements of any new development framework. It is the aspiration of the UN and the NGO community that these processes align and help deliver the next generation of MDGs, just as the set of conferences in the 1990s delivered the original framework. However, this would rely on an unprecedented level of agreement within each international process (not expected in terms of the climate-change negotiations) and coherence amongst the different processes.

5 Andy Sumner and Meera Tiwari, ‘Global Poverty Reduction to 2015 and Beyond; What Has Been the Impact of the MDGs and What Are the Options for a Post-2015 Global Framework?’ IDS (Institute of Development Studies) Working Paper 348 (Brighton: IDS, 2010).

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It also stretches the capacity of actors to influence the process. Covering the complex policies, intelligence and advocacy for all these processes in the next few years will try the resources of not only the NGO community but also the smaller developing countries. This will decrease Southern ‘buy-in’ of the process and possibly weaken the positions of important contributors to the debate.

5. Multitude of options

Currently, options for the next generation of MDGs range from the conservative to the revolutionary. The Overseas Development Institute (ODI) has put forward three possible scenarios for the next generation of MDGs. The first scenario is ‘more of the same’, that is, take forward the current set of MDGs with no changes and reset the timeline. The second scenario is more adventurous, with a new set of targets without a deadline and/or perhaps more locally focused. The third scenario maintains the core MDGs but adds a ‘surrounding ring’ of something new.

The current policy debate within the international community can be taken a stage further from the ODI scenarios into a spectrum of options. It is useful to review the various proposals for a post-2015 framework and arrange them along a spectrum of the most feasible to the least feasible (ignoring the particular merits of each scenario).

The graph below shows the range of possible forms that the MDGs 2.0 could take, from the most radical on the left to the least radical on the right.

On the far right of the spectrum is the most conservative approach, the roll-over option. This is a minimalist approach whereby the current deadline of the existing MDGs would be extended by an extra five, ten or fifteen years. Jeffrey Sachs has mentioned this alternative. Further to the left, but still in the conservative category, is an option by which a number of goals are added, for example, having to do with climate change.

A slightly more progressive approach would be to take the existing MDGs, or a slightly altered version of them, but contextualise them to each national situation. This would do away with the criticism that progress is measured against a global figure rather than an achievable national target. Moving down the scale from the more conservative proposals to more progress frameworks, the well-being approach argues for a set of MDGs that are focused on a different, more comprehensive set of indicators that take into account additional factors such as empowerment and options facing the individual. This moves the people affected by the MDGs from recipients of aid to self-empowered decision-makers capable of dealing with their own situations.

More ambitious options consider the MDG framework as a normative process that includes a human rights approach. This would help institutionalise the MDGs into the global governance framework. It would also help streamline some of the various initiatives. For example, pulling the Convention on the Rights of the Child and MDGs into the same framework would help roll the framework out at the national level.

At the far left of the spectrum are the ‘one world’ options. For some, the next version of the MDGs provides an exciting chance to incorporate a new set of indicators that look at the whole earth as their guide. The former chair of the OECD

THE SPECTRUM OF APPROACHES

One World

Revolutionary Status quo

Human Rights Approach Well-Being Approach Disaggregated Goals New Goals Added Roll-Over Deadline

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DAC, Richard Manning, has called for the ‘one-earth’ approach whereby policymakers would take into account connected issues such as climate change and poverty. This could create standards in terms of carbon emissions and might bring a number of separate debates at the global level, specifically the elusive climate debate, into the MDG level.

6. Mapping of active participants and initiatives

Since the 2010 September summit, there has been a substantial increase in the debate around the UN MDGs 2015 framework but very few new entrants to the debate and only a handful of coalitions and groups coming together to study the issue.

6.1 Civil society

The bulk of the groups working on the post-2015 debate are in the NGO community and primarily from the development sector. The most active coalition, Beyond 2015, is currently leading the debate. It was launched in November 2010 and is currently based out of the pan-European NGO umbrella group Concorde.6 Beyond 2015 aims to influence national and international processes on the creation of a post-2015 development framework. It will do this by providing a forum for discussion and by sharing resources as well as supporting national coalitions with advocacy materials.

Another civil society group addressing the post-2015 framework is Civil Society Reflections Group on Global Development Perspectives, which was also created in November 2010. The group, a collection of leading civil society leaders,7 meets regularly during the year and aims to provide specific recommendations on the post-2015 framework to the Rio+20 Summit in 2012.

The third NGO coalition addressing the post-2015 debate is the Berlin Centre for Civil Society, which discussed the post-MDG framework at its November 2010 annual Global Perspective’s Conference in Berlin. As a result of that meeting, the Berlin Centre for Civil Society is considering a work plan on the post-2015 agenda and has created an online forum to open the debate.

Other coalition groups to note include the Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP), which has been contributing to the debate, on and off, since the September summit,8 and the Women Deliver coalition, which has plans to participate in the debate to advocate for maternal health and sexual and reproductive health and rights and will host three regional consultations in 2012 on these issues.

The most active NGOs are the Catholic development charities CAFOD (Catholic Overseas Development Agency), Caritas and Trocaire (in Ireland). CAFOD staff member Amy Pollard is one of the leading policy specialists on this issue in the NGO sector. CAFOD recently released its ‘100 Voices’, a review of Southern partners on the issue of the post-2015 framework. World Wildlife Fund (WWF) is the sole environmental NGO active in the debate and is a member of the Beyond 2015 coalition. The international human rights group Amnesty has been keen to promote a human rights framework for the next edition of the MDGs. It published a report on human rights and the post-2015 framework early in 2010. It has not been as active since the September summit.

6 Beyond 2015 is chaired by Leo Williams, formerly a staff member of the UK umbrella group Bond. The main participating NGOs are CAFOD, Christian Aid, CIDSE, Sightsavers, Trocaire, WWF and Bond, who make up the steering committee of the organisation. The Beyond 2015 coalition is hoping to review its structure in order to include Southern participants on its steering committee. Although the majority of members are from European countries, there are representatives from India, South Africa and Brazil. To date, the coalition has put together a list of ‘Essential Must-Haves’ for the post-2015 MDG framework which it has shared widely, including with the UN Secretary-General. The coalition is starting work on influencing national governments and actively pursuing the possibility of undertaking a global survey to assess what people living in Southern countries think are important elements of a new MDG framework.

7 Civil Society Reflections Group on Global Development Perspectives draws its members from organisations such as the Global Policy Forum (Barbara Adams), Third World Network China (Chee Yoke Ling), Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation (Henning Melber), Social Watch (Roberto Bissio) and Terre des Hommes Germany (Danuta Sacher), amongst others.

8 While GCAP does not have a dedicated work programme on the issue, it joined with the Beyond 2015 coalition to host a seminar on the post-2015 debate at the World Social Forum in February 2011 and will host a seminar on the post-MDG ‘space’ at the 2011 CIVICUS World Assembly in September. GCAP has been working with the coalition to share information and advocacy materials with the GCAP partners. GCAP co-chair, Amitabh Behar, was a panel member at the UN Development Committee’s 14 June event on the post-MDG agenda. GCAP also coordinates an email forum on the MDGs that shares information on the post-2015 framework.

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The larger international NGOs (INGOs) have not fully entered into public discussions yet. Save the Children UK is expected to produce a report on the post-2015 issue late in 2011. Oxfam GB has not been active, although Duncan Green, its head of research, has monitored and contributed his perspective on the issue in his popular blog, ‘From Poverty to Power’. ActionAid was very active in the debate until Claire Melamed left the organisation to join ODI in 2009. Since that time ActionAid has not been a contributor to the discussions.

Thus far, the momentum on the post-2015 debate in the NGO community appears to be dominated primarily by smaller NGOs and coalitions. The larger NGOs appear to be hanging back watching the early debate unfold and monitoring the developing positions of governments and multilaterals before engaging in the discussions.

6.2 Think tanks, academia and foundations

Think tanks and academia have been at the heart of the post-2015 debate and are the drivers of much of the discussion thus far. The ODI is the leading think tank on the MDGs, producing reports, seminars and articles on the issue. When Claire Melamed moved from ActionAid to ODI, she brought much of her work on the post-2015 debate with her. The other important think tank is the Institute for Development Studies, which is home to one of the leading academics on the issue, Andy Sumner. Sumner is based at IDS and has published a number of papers as well as contributed to the more public debate through forums such as the Guardian Development website.

CIGI and the International Red Cross have joined to undertake research on the post-2015 agenda. The project Towards a Post-2015 Development Paradigm aims to ‘provoke critical examinations of, and generate policy options on, the future governance paradigms in international development’. The project has hosted retreats for key thinkers on this issue and will publish a report to inform the UN High-Level Panel on Global Sustainability and also the G20 leaders when they meet in November. Meanwhile, the Center for Global Development has also been writing and commenting on the post-2015 debate for some time – one of the few US organisations to do so. Its focus is on evaluating the previous set of MDGs and recommendations for the new framework.

The large international foundations such as Ford and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have not been active in the debate thus far, although it is understood that the Gates Foundation is beginning to consider options, partners and approaches to the post-2015 agenda. It is likely to enter the debate formally late in 2011.

7. Missing in action

As stated before, the debate has been centred almost entirely within the NGO/think tank community. The 14 June 2011 debate in the General Assembly was the first major international discussion of the post-2015 debate. Prior to that, meetings and seminars were conducted and papers were published by think tanks and NGOs. The lack of government, private sector and finance community comment and input has meant that the conversation on the post-2015 framework has not yet confronted some of the current political realities. This has created an unbalanced perspective on the debate with a focus on the content, consultations and paradigms rather than the political processes that will deliver the next generation of the MDGs.

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7.1 Governments

While some countries are beginning to examine the issue, there is no evident strong momentum to do so.9 Governments appear to be holding back from entering the discussion; they are either waiting for a clearer process or are not ready to commit to any one proposal. The G20 has not addressed the MDGs (current or future) in any real way, and the G8 has also moved on from this debate. There appears to be no central forum that can bring the political leadership to this discussion and put it on the agenda of the important meetings over the next few years.

7.2 The private sector

The role of companies and the private sector was not a key component of the original set of MDGs, but it is widely accepted by those working on the next set of MDGs that corporate sector buy-in will be critical for its success. The rise of the Seoul Consensus with its focus on private sector–led development and infrastructure incorporates the market into the core of the next generation of development thinking. That said, there has not been much activity from this group, from either individual companies or corporate associations like the World Economic Forum.

7.3 The international financial institutions

The World Bank and IMF (International Monetary Fund) have not yet shown their hand in this debate. There is no formal committee or internal mechanism on the post-MDG framework, nor are representatives actively participating in the debate. Commentators, such as Barry Cairn from CIGI, believe the international financial institutions (IFIs) will become engaged only if there is a substantially radical proposal for the next set of MDGs. Otherwise, he believes the World Bank is likely to sit on the sidelines, at least for the initial stages of the debate.

7.4 Trade unions

So far the unions have not been active in the discussions. The International Trade Union Confederation’s internal development policy group, the Trade Union Development Cooperation Group, is preoccupied with the 2011 High-Level Meeting on Aid Effectiveness in Busan and at the time of writing had not looked at the post-2015 debate.

7.5 Environmental groups

Organisations working on climate change have, like the unions, commented on the lack of climate targets and have suggested new additions but on the whole have remained distant from this dialogue, with the exception of the WWF. They may prefer to work through their own international processes, like the UNFCCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change), to reach their goals. This will become clearer as the Rio+20 process gets under way.

9 There is much less evidence of activity in the governmental sector. The most interested governments appear to be in Europe: The Dutch government has started to look at the issue and the parliament recently hosted a debate on the issue. The Danish government will assume the EU presidency in January 2012 and it is thought that it is following the debate, ready to play an active role in 2012. The Latvian government will be EU president in 2015 and is being pushed by its civil society organisations to engage in the debate. The UK government was keen not to push the 2015 issue prior to the UN Summit and has not played a role. However, it is understood that there is an informal group working on this, and representatives from the Department for International Development are attending seminars on the issue. Similarly, the German government appears to be treating the post-MDGs debate as a watching brief. There is a rumour that the German development agency GTZ is planning a workshop in November 2011 on the 2015 framework. The EU Commission has been quietly working on the post-2015 debate for some time but has not actively played a role in the discussions, perhaps looking to inform member states to help define an EU perspective.

Outside of Europe there is little prominent discussion or debate. There is no evidence of activity by the US government and not a great deal on the BRIC countries. Canada has no official line on the post-2015 debate. However, representatives of CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency) have been attending some of the think tank seminars and discussions. There is some indication that the Japanese government may set up a small group of countries to look at the post-2015 framework as one of the outcomes of the MDG Review Follow-up meeting it hosted in Tokyo in early June 2010.

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8. The role of civil society

It could be argued that due to the lack of government and multilateral commentary on the post-2015 question, civil society has created an elevated expectation of its role in the debate. In a list of possible scenarios on the post-2015 processes, some see the UN giving its mandate to deliver the new set of MDGs over to civil society entirely, allowing non-governmental actors to formulate the new framework. Such scenarios underline the lack of political realism in the current debate.

In fact, the strongest contribution of civil society has been underplayed in the discussions so far. The campaigning element – to popularise the next generation of MDGs and put pressure on governments to agree and then sign on to the new MDGs – is not often mentioned. One of the groups referencing this role is the UNDP, which, in an internal memo on the post-2015 debate, viewed the role of a campaigning civil society as critical to get reluctant governments to sign up. The memo argued that in this scenario ‘the role of broad civil society... becomes very important in determining the content of any post-2015 framework and also in pressing their governments to adopt stretching commitments that fully meet the needs of shared challenges’.

Indeed, rather than stressing its position in deciding the content of the new framework, which is politically unrealistic, civil society should be looking to agree on top-line messaging on key components, analysing the political temperature of key governments and institutions, and pressing global leaders to be ambitious when deciding on the final version of the MDGs.

Conclusion

This initial assessment, some ten months after the September summit, is surprising in terms of the lack of momentum in the global community on this critical issue. While global groups like the G20 focus on innovative financing and economic growth, the Busan High-Level Meeting on Aid Effectiveness looks at the aid issue, and the Rio+20 summit promises to examine the role of equality and economic sustainability – all of which will add to the post-2015 debate – there currently is no dedicated global forum publicly discussing the new MDGs. Given that there are only four years to the deadline, the lack of a post-MDG agenda gives weight to those arguing that there may not be any successor to the current set of goals.

Indeed, unless the key governments, institutions and large civil society actors increase their advocacy, it is likely that the MDGs will be dropped or remain confined to a technical level at the UN while lacking the necessary political backing or resources to make them effective.

The current post-2015 debate is messy and confusing. There is a profusion of plans and proposals for adapted MDGs, yet there is a vacuum at the centre of the debate: no driver for the post-2015 debate. Indeed, some of the larger development NGOs remain sceptical about the process, and UN officials, off the record, underline the real possibility that there will not be a replacement of MDGs. As a result, if the situation has not changed by 2015, the outlook will be bleak – somewhere between abandoned and tinkered-with if plotted on the chart on page 5.

Therefore, it is of great importance that civil society step up to put the post-2015 MDG framework on the international agenda. Civil society has an important role as a catalyst in the debate, reminding politicians and international bureaucrats that failure, or simply rolling over the current set of MDGs, is not an option.

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Process scenarios

Before examining the political processes for the next generation of MDGs, it is important to note that the first set was not tabled and voted on in the UN. The global leaders agreed to the UN Millennium Declaration in September 2000, but the actual set of MDGs was put together for the Financing for Development Summit that took place in Mexico the following year. The US government used this ‘ownership’ gap of the process prior to the 2005 MDG Summit when it contended that the United States had never agreed to the MDGs. This underlines the difficulties of using the first set as a guide and the importance of ensuring there is some concrete momentum for agreeing to the set of MDGs.

Amy Pollard from the Catholic development charity CAFOD has laid out five possible scenarios for deciding on the next generation of MDGs.

1. A Clearly Led Legitimate Framework: In this scenario the process is contained entirely within the UN. The UN would undertake a full consultation and present a framework to the 2013 summit attended by heads of state. The framework would then be refined throughout 2014 and presented to the UN General Assembly for ratification in 2015 seamlessly to replace the current MDGs.

2. Inside Out: This scenario reflects the process for agreeing on the first set of MDGs wherein the UN sets the direction for the next generation of MDGs and a small clique of UN specialists draw up the framework, borrowing ideas from governments and civil society. The final framework is incorporated into the official institutions and then presented to the outside world.

3. Outside In: Here momentum is led by civil society, think tanks and progressive governments, which draft a range of options and then narrow down the selection into a final framework that they then pitch to the international community with some governments adopting in 2015 and other governments coming on board over a five- to ten-year period. One possible expansion of this scenario is civil society led, where the UN hands the process over to civil society and mandates it to propose a new set of MDGs for the international community.

4. Jigsaw Framework: In this scenario the UN hands over the formation of the next generation of MDGs to a range of processes including those of the UNFCCC, G20, G77, and so on. These groups and processes build the MDG framework piecemeal and then bring it together into some type of coherent framework that is ultimately turned into the next set of MDGs.

5. Failure: Here, there is no political will to agree to another set of MDGs, and the entire process is abandoned.

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Time frame

Below is an outline of the probable time frame:

2011

• September summit: more detail on the UN’s plan and process. The Secretary-General is expected to announce a process for framing the next generation of MDGs.

• G20 in France in November: advances in innovative finance.

• Aid Effectiveness Meeting in Busan: a guide to the level of commitment of the international community in advancing pure aid policies.

• UNFCCC in Durban in December: an indication of the level of agreement in the international community on the environment and whether any agreement can be ‘wrapped’ into a larger set of goals.

2012

• US hosted G8: a good indicator as to whether this issue is anywhere on the global agenda.

• Rio+20: this May meeting will set the stage for global negotiations in terms of ambitions and focus of the next set of MDGs.

• Mexican G20: Again, it will be important to note the prominence of any development targets as it will indicate the stance of the MIC countries on the issue.

• September 2012 summit: a chance for the UN Secretary-General to evaluate the process and give new impetus to the debate should it need it.

• June/July 2013: UK G8.

• September 2013: The UN MDG Summit, at which the new proposal should be tabled.

• September 2015: the new set of MDGs, if there are any, should be formally adopted by the UN.

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Part three

Priority areas for the next five years While there is not much the global community can do to fix the economic situation in the short term, there are two areas that the global advocacy community should focus its attention on because they are the keys to laying the foundations of a new framework.

1. Coherence

The first targets for radical reform are the IMF and World Bank. While the leadership of the World Bank in 2000 helped bring the MDGs to life, the Bank and the IMF have not been strong supporters of the goals since their inception. Both the Bank and the IMF have maintained a set of policy prescriptions that does not put the MDGs at the core. For Southern countries, faced with choosing between the vague and unfunded MDGs or the International Financial Institution’s lending requirements, the choice was not a difficult one.

Two NGOs, The Global Campaign for Education and ActionAid, have commented on this extensively. Indeed, according to David Hulme and James Scott, the ‘IMF in particular sees the MDGs as being of little relevance’. They quote a senior IMF official as saying that ‘the MDGs are European social policy. We don’t do European social policy’.

The ‘MDG 2.0’ debate needs to include the World Bank and the IMF if it is to have a consistent approach to poorer countries. Having targets that are disconnected from the tools for lending would continue to create competing and sometime opposing frameworks.

2. Buy-in

As mentioned above, the MDGs languished for a number of years until they were championed by the UN Secretary-General and one or two world leaders. Even this attention was short lived as the economic crisis took hold in 2008. The next generation needs to secure the support of key stakeholders, including the public, governments and global institutions.

2.1 Southern participation

Southern countries are important to the debate. David Hulme comments that there was a ‘lack of interest of the world’s poorest countries’ in the MDG formation and implementation process. Hulme puts this down to a pragmatism on part of these countries, who realise that they will achieve the greatest outcomes nationally through bilateral deals with trading countries and aid donors and that the IMF and World Bank and the Poverty Reduction Strategies (PRSPs) are much more critical relationships than the MDGs.

So, in terms of shaping the post-MDG debate, Southern countries will most likely remain sceptical that the new MDGs will be any different than previous ones. The participation of the poorest countries will then be dictated by how much the new MDGs integrate the IFIs into their framework.

Therefore, work needs to focus on bringing Southern governments and other actors into the debate early to ensure that the next edition of the MDGs is not another northern construct.

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Priority areas for the next five years

2.2 New power-brokers

Obviously, in addition to Southern buy-in, the new power-brokers must be included in the discussions. China, India, South Korea and Indonesia, all members of the G20, are likely to play a more prominent role in the post-2015 debate. The G20 has recently taken over as the global development forum, succeeding the G8, which was unable and unwilling to deliver on its commitments. The G20, under the leadership of the Korean government, has rolled out an agenda that focuses on the economics of development rather than the social aspects.

As a result, the G20 is examining issues such as infrastructure, vocational education and trade. The G20 countries are keen to move beyond the traditional aid debate, and their Seoul Development Consensus documents, agreed upon at the Seoul Summit in November 2010, had only a passing reference to the MDGs. The G20 appears more interested in tracking economic indicators, such as growth and trade interest, rather than poverty indicators.

The BRIC countries also may be content to see the MDGs focus on social aspects but ‘ring-fence’ growth and development issues within the G20 forum, thereby restricting the MDGs in their holistic approach.

These new actors have an opportunity to reshape the next generation of MDGs so that they carry the perspectives of emerging powers and can secure wider support than the previous MDGs, which were perceived mainly as a Western construct.

2.3 Selling to the public

The global public will also have to buy-in to the new set of MDGs. At the moment, the brand recognition of the MDGs is low. This is due in part to the lack of packaging of the goals, lumbering them with an uninspiring acronym, and a complicated measurement process. While the UN Millennium Campaign has worked diligently to build global support, it has been hampered by the attributes of the current set. By making the next generation of MDGs more publicly orientated, it will enable effective campaigning to build a movement supporting them.

If there is a global campaign on par with the 2005 Make Poverty History campaign, then governments of all sizes would feel the pressure to deliver. There are signs that social networking can be an ally in supporting the MDGs. As a senior executive of Facebook commented at a conference on social media, the MDGs have to be made ‘sociable’ so the 500 million Facebook members can become partners in delivering on the goals.

Global taxpayers and their governments must also be convinced that the MDGs are working, as is the global development framework. Civil society has been taking this line for a number of years; the ONE Campaign, for example, has focused on the good news of development, while the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is promoting the Living Proof project, which sells good news stories on development. Initiatives like these will have to be duplicated and promoted as part of longer-term work to mobilise public support in all countries for ambitious global targets.

2.4 Looking for a hero

Finally, to get buy-in by the global community, the MDGs need a champion. Originally, US President Bill Clinton, UK Prime Minister Tony Brown and UK Chancellor Gordon Brown filled this role, using global meetings like the G8 to promote poverty issues such as debt and aid. The MDGs have suffered from not having a strong champion amongst the global leaders. This is perhaps the most difficult point to address, as political leaders tend not to tie their flag to the mast in case they end up going down with the ship.

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ConclusionAn action plan for the NGO community

The second generation of MDGs begins in 2011, so the global non-governmental community needs to undertake a number of priority actions to put forth a case for that next generation. Civil society needs to work together over the next four years to increase its political awareness in relation to the MDG debate. This includes compiling and sharing intelligence on the positions of the key countries and other stakeholders and adjusting strategies accordingly to ensure that there is strong and enduring support for an ambitious set of targets. In addition to a global understanding of the prevailing political currents, NGOs should also build up an understanding of the global public’s attitude to global development and coordinated goal setting. Surveys and polls should be commissioned in countries such as Indonesia, Brazil and India to gauge the perceptions of the public from the poor to the middle classes. The results could then be used to build a case for global support for any new framework as well as for judging the performance of the global campaigns.

Civil society must also increase its own coherence. If it is to become a key player in the post-2015 process, it needs to agree upon a set of principles for the MDGs. The Beyond 2015 coalition has begun this process – the ‘Essential Must-Haves’ – which lays out the minimum requirements for the next generation. While civil society may not be able to converge on a single set of goals, given the wide range of options proposed, it can agree on a set of principles. This should be a priority for the community.

Finally, civil society needs to begin building public momentum to convince governments to sign up to an ambitious set of goals. The period between the 2013 MDG Summit and 2015 will be critical. A global campaign supported by a large number of coalitions, social movements and INGOs that taps into the current zeitgeist could create the momentum for delivering an ambitious set of goals in 2015. Such a campaign would have to be integrated into the fabric of the current set of campaigns, but a consistent weave from 2011 to 2015 would set the stage for more substantive goals. If there is no coordinated campaigning, no clear set of principles and no consistent push for renewal of a global development framework in the next few years, then the global community is likely to go for the lowest common denominator, that is, rolling over the current set of MDGs for another 15 years.

The timing of the next generation of MDGs is fraught with difficulty; the delicate negotiations will take place when the global community is struggling to sort itself out after one of the greatest economic crises and an epic change in power relations.

This underlines the importance of focusing on the politics and economic realities of achieving the MDGs. This is not to say civil society should settle for a MDG framework that falls short of its goals including ending poverty and addressing climate change, but it must shift its focus from the policy seminars and conference rooms into the world of political negotiation and public sentiment.

The world is much more complicated than it was in 2000. There are many more actors with strong views and positions; the time when a cosy club of G8 nations could sit and agree on global policy is long gone. This work will take concentrated effort over the next five years.

The next-generation MDGs will be the first experiment in the new global order, and their success (or otherwise) will lay the foundation of the next generation of global governance.

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