Critically discuss the assumptions that underpin the MDGs as a strategy for development.

In September 2000, the world’s leaders gathered at the UN Millennium Summit and 189 nations
in total adopted the United Nations Millennium Declaration, from which emerged the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) (WHO 2005; UN 2001). The MDGs have been
described as the most broadly supported and comprehensive goals the world has ever established
(Reddy and Heuty 2004: 2). Within the MDG framework, eight goals, 18 targets, and 48
indicators have been spelled out (UNDP 2008). Importantly, the MDGs form a set of political
commitments aimed at tackling and overcoming the major development issues faced by the
developing world by 2015 (WHO 2005). However, there are opposing points of view over the
MDG development approach, the MDG framework methodology and the construction of some
specific MDGs. In this essay, I will argue that the MDGs are based on problematic assumptions
that underpin the development approach and methodology put forth to achieve the goals. I will
also explore the problematic assumptions that underpin the construction of some particular
MDGs. In section one, I will examine approaches to development embedded in the MDG
framework and show that these approaches are problematic in that they are top-down, have the
neoliberal economic orientation and a quantitative focus rather than qualitative one. In section
two, I will look at methodology used in MDG framework and argue that it is state-centric,
unreliable and inflexible to the local context. Finally in section three, I will focus the discussion
on the construction of a few specific goals and show their indicators are less ambitious and
monitoring system is problematic.

Although the MDG framework has provided a space for dialogues regarding global
development, the influential power over the outcome of the talks is still in the hand of the
developed world. This has resulted in the MDG development approach which will be the core of
the discussion in this first section of this paper. The MDG framework has been based on the
developed world plausible assumptions in three concerns: a top-downed approach, the neoliberal
economic orientation and a globally fixed formula. First of all, the imposition by developed
world strategies and development agendas on the developing world is clear (Alston 2005; Bond
2006). The top-down approach can be seen from the fact that almost all of the targets of the
MDGs are derived from development objectives of the Organization for Economic Cooperation

1
and Development (OECD) determined in the 1990s (Gaiha 2003: 59-60; Reddy and Heuty
2004). Adoption of this set of strategies implies the United Nations (UN) is floating away from
serving the interests of poor people into the circuit of global neoliberal power. One evidence of
the top-down characteristics of the MDG framework is its origin within the UN in the manner
that contrasts to the UN’s tradition where by a great length of careful discussion in committees
take place before reaching any consensus (Amin 2006: 1-2). Another sign of top-down approach
within MDGs framework is that the MDGs have already become a new conditionality that binds
governments to international goals and targets, regardless of their own national priorities
(Antrobus 2005: 95). By adopting this global commitment, a country will loss the stage of being
in control over its economic, social and political decision-making and accountable primarily to
its people and society (Antrobus 2005).

From a critical perspective, the underline assumption of the imposer of this top-down approach is
that they are developed and have every right to judge what is black or white. For example, the
developed world is legitimate to advocate good governance, structural changes, freedom of
speech and so forth in every single country over the world. The problem with this assumption is
that it will create resistances in one way or another or it neglects any possible channel of
negotiation that may lead to other practical alternatives. Consequently, this will lead to concerns
made some academics and social activists summarized in Fukuda-Parr (2004: 399) that the
MDGs could lead to a donor-led development agendas at the expends of participatory approach
in which countries and communities set their own priorities. The argument that this imposition is
wrong can be supported by Jolly (2007) who insist that a central to MDG political economy is
that the Bretton Woods Institutions (the World Bank and the IMF) and World Trade
Organization (WTO), acting mainly for G8 governments and corporations, appear intent upon
bringing ever more aspects of life under the rules of commodification, attributing market values
to society and nature. Therefore, the top-down MDG framework is argued here as problematic.

Secondly, MDG framework is problematic in that it has the neo-liberal economic orientation
which pays no attention to its inducement of inequality. First of all, achievement of all the targets
of the MDGs needs application of the neo-liberalism which ranges from privatization, maximum
deregulation, uncontrolled capital movement and so forth (Agarwal and Ray 2007: 9-10). In fact,
the conjuncture of Amin (2006) and the Millennium Project (2005) towards achievement of
MDGs is that they recognize the free market, institutional changes and other neoliberal
2
mechanism as the means to meet the goals by 2015. Nevertheless, Amin (2006) has argued
against the use of these means while the Millennium Project (2005) is favor of it. The point to be
raised from these arguments is that both opposing points of view have recognized existing of the
neo-liberalism in the process of implementing MDG framework.

Advocates of neo-liberalism assumed that economic growth is an end in itself meaning everyone
will share all the benefits (Higgott 2000). Arguably, this assumption is absolutely wrong.
Evidence has shown over times that economic growth does not prove the improvement in the
standard of life of the poor rather increases inequality (Agarwal and Ray 2007; Higgott 2000).
Firstly, according to Edelman and Haugerud (2005:2), the definition of development is
contextually dependence. They assert that much debate in the past two centuries “explore
whether all or most societies follow the same trajectory toward greater accumulation and well
being or, alternatively, whether wealth in some places or among certain social groups is causally
related to poverty in other places or among other groups”. At least, it can be reflected that people
particularly some academics has recognized alternatives to development. Secondly, there is no
level playing field for new comers in the free market economy (Jolly 2007: 64). It is obvious
from one of the key recommendations made in the practical action plan to achievement of MDGs
(the Millennium Project) that high-income countries should open their market to support
international trades of developing countries (Millennium Project 2005: xxii). However, this
rhetoric has never become true when so called high-income countries were not generous on
international affair such as the trade agreements. For example, the Doha trade round, Khor
(2000) argues that global trading conditions under Doha talks has been unequal, in favour of,
dominated by, and influenced by, the rich countries.

In addition, while privatization is one of the key mechanisms to reach the MDGs, it is critical
that it will be liquidated by foreign capitals rather than local investment by which frequency of
capital circulation will create wealth of communities and countries (Nissanke and Thorbecke
2007). Consequently, wealth created in the society is floating into the capitalists and thus
contributing to the increase of inequality. In another case, according to Agarwal and Ray (2007),
opening up to global economy increases growth, but ultimately leads to increase of inequality.
Agarwal and Ray (2007: 16) argue that the relationship between growth and income distribution
is frightening in the way that it doe not tell a parallel pattern between growth and poverty over
times. Accordingly, this phenomenon leads to the widening gap between rich and poor. In fact in
3
2008, “Income is very unequally distributed across the world: the richest 20% have 74% of the
income while the poorest 20% only have 2% of the income” (UNDP 2008). In short MDG
framework has already employed neo-liberal economy under the assumption that it will bring
about poverty eradication. However, evidence proves that the outcome of the process has been
the opposite. The next problem is to do with a ‘one size fits all’ approach.

Finally, the MDG approach is problematic in that it relies on the economic order that is assumed
to be globally fitted. This argument is well supported by Alston (2005) who asserts that the
MDG framework has applied a ‘one size fits all recipe’ regardless of the specific need of
particular country. Unfortunately, this global economic order deals with development as linear
which lead to incompatibility and failure (Reddy and Heuty 2004). Undoubtedly, the Millennium
Declaration has shown that almost all nations over the world have pledged to the same set of
development strategies set forth in MDG framework (UN 2000). Although the millennium
project addresses localization, for example, Millennium declaration addressed the specific needs
of African countries, landlocked countries, and island countries (UN 2000), what it really means
by localization is just helping the national level adjust to global goals (Reddy and Heuty 2006:
15). The rationale behind this unprecedented movement is the notion that economic development
has to be done exactly in the same path (Reddy and Heuty 2004: 16). This assumption is not true
for various reasons. The debate over aid effectiveness to shows that there is something not
perfectly right even though researches prove to some extent aid is effective (Addison et al.
2005). Absorptive capacity is good example of the incompatibility of the increase international
aid to developing countries (Gurria and Gershberg: n.d.). Gurria and Gershberg argue that not
every country can make a good use of aid provided at times due to other development conditions
such as lack personnel expertise. Therefore arguably dumping money on rapid aid increase is
wasting of resources. In sum, it has been clear that imposing development strategies, focusing on
neo-liberal economy and applying the ‘one size fit all’ approaches are problematic. Apart from
problematic approach, another interesting problem of the MDG framework is its methodology
which I will discuss in the next section.

Obviously, there are three areas to be emphasized regarding methodological problems of the
MDGs namely state centric, utilizing unreliable estimation and overwhelmingly quantitative.
Firstly, taking the nation-state as administrative unit representing the stage of development is
problematic because the state does not always represent the interests of all groups and so forth
4
(Reddy and Heuty 2004: 19). The road map towards the achievement of MDGs highlights that
every country has to develop their action plan under cooperation with the MDG country team
(the Millennium Project 2005). This is to argue that MDG framework is state-centric. The
assumption behind this state-centric method is that the state is a perfect administrative unit and
well distributes wealth of the society so that ‘the country’s GDP grows means every one grows’.
However, there are many reasons to argue that this assumption is problematic. One of the
reasons is that there is a problem with the state capacity to play a good role in development
particularly in the interconnected world (Jolly 2007: 63). For example, a sound macroeconomic
situation, low inflation, stable exchange rate, sustainable debt condition, sound current account
balance, comfortable foreign exchange reserves, low saving investment gap, low fiscal deficit, is
essential for sustaining the process to meet MDGs (Jolly 2007: 67). More importantly, this
situation is sensitive to the global trend and the investor speculation thus it is likely that poor
countries will not be able to control over this situation (Jolly 2007: 67).

Another reason is that state is quite often not perfect representation of the interest of all groups
within the society as per the missing of good democratic system (Nissanke and Thorbecks 2007).
Nissanke and Thorbecks (2007: 20) argue that even the majority democratic system cannot
reassure a fair share of the interest of all groups particularly the marginalized and vulnerable
groups. The implication of this is the increase in inequality in terms of materialistic measurement
and quality of life. A study conducted by Reddy and Heuty (2004) show that the two reasons put
forwards above are reasonable because (from the study) not only economic inequality has
increased but also the quality of life among marginalized people has been reversed. Therefore,
one can anticipate that a lack of capacity by state and a lack of proper administration system are
the root cause of this inequality and reversion of the quality of life.

Secondly, methodological weakness is the unreliable estimation in the assessment part of MDG
framework. This can be seen from the needs assessment practice. In order to estimate resources
needed for the achievement of the MDG targets, preliminary needs assessment is to be
conducted. According to Satterthwaite (2003), the World Bank and the IMF and their allies rely
on inaccurate data provided by states to assess needs and required resources to meet MDGs. It is
far from being realistic to achieve these goals if the mistake is made since the beginning.
Moreover, being optimistic about structural and policy changes is also unrealistic. For example,
part of the conditions to meet the goals, structural reforms and policy changes to make sure the
5
effectiveness of service deliveries, are expected (Satterthwaite 2003). These reforms and changes
vary from country to country and should be very hard to estimate the extent to which the
achievement of the MDGs requires. In addition, in estimating the external fund, the projection of
the country’s income is needed and through this income projection the gap of fund needed is
indentified (Satterthwaite 2003: 175). The problem is that it is unlikely that the estimated income
will be accurate as the global economic conditions are changing over time.

Furthermore, reliance on the external aid as part of the resources required is far from being
realistically occurring (Reddy and Heuty 2006). What has been wrong is that high-income
countries has not kept their commitment which means the amount of aid has not increased to the
level they have promised. Addison, Mavrotas and McGillivray (2005:1) and Addison and
Mavrotas (2005) reveal that official development assistance should in crease from 0.25% of
donor country GNP in 2003 to 0.445 in 2006 and 0.54% by 2015. Addison and Mavrotas (2005)
reveal the same figure of commitment but have further argued that most of developed countries
do not meet this level of donation.

Thirdly, relying on the quantitative measurement is problematic because not all development
processes is quantitatively measurable. One of the concerns is that the ‘quantity’ will ultimately
leads to the situation that MDGs unnecessarily waste resources. Drawn from targets and
indicators of MDGs, there will be no doubt that what has been understood by MDGs advocators
is that development is measureable. What is problematic here is that MDGs cause off track
investment (James 2006). James suggests that “governments need to consider moving from
means- to ends-based proxies” (James 2006: 442). If taking goal two (achieve universal primary
education) as an example, getting all kids boys and girls to school quantitatively measure by the
enrolment number, the quality of education these kids would have got from their schooling is not
taking into consideration (James 2006). Therefore, this will lead to the circumstances in which
investment has contributed very little to human development (knowledge and skills needed for
their lives). If the MDG frame is comprehensive it would have taken into account the quality of
education and invest in the fields necessary to development of kids’ knowledge and skills for
their future lives. Another concern is that the ‘quantity’ will not be able to measure every aspect
of human development. The good life, for example, will not be able to be measured by the
indicators of MDGs as the definition of good lives varies from country to country and from

6
culture to culture (Cornwall and Nyamu-Musembi 2004). In short, nation state, unreliable
estimation and quantity are problematic assumption underpinning the MDG methods.

In this final section the focus of my discussion is on the problematic assumption underpinning
the construction of a couple of the goals. Arguably, the some goals are less ambitious; their
indicators are not adequate in terms of development measurement and they are too weak to be
globally monitored. Clearly, MDG framework works by setting up targets and measureable
indicators (WHO 2005). According to Pogge (2004: 378), this replacement makes a considerable
difference which the latter is less ambitious in terms of achieving the target. The baseline
statistics for indicators one to three which are related to poverty incidence as computed by the
World Bank, proportion of population below $1 per day, poverty gap ratio and share of the
poorest in national accounts, are not available in the official MDG website that is being
maintained by the World Bank Reddy and Heuty (2004). Secondly, setting targets for MDGs is
problematic as indicators designed are quantifiable and miss out on qualitative measurement
(Antrobus 2003). For the millennium goal one for instance, reduce by half the proportion of
people living on less than a dollar a day, there is a problem with replacing the number with the
proportion of the poor (Pogge 2004: 378). Moreover, the & 1 per day indicator is not viable
globally as per living cost varying from country to country, city to city and from urban to rural
(Antrobus 2003). The rationale behind is that the indicator allows for comparing and aggregating
progress across countries in reducing the number of people living under extreme poverty and for
monitoring trends at the global level. Nevertheless, missing out on the consideration of inflation
and increase of food prices this indicator is more problematic (Antrobus 2003). The same
indicator does not tell the state of well-being of a person in the different sets of the environment
that person live. This is well supported by the functioning theory constructed Sen in 1985 related
to MDGs by James (2006). The supplementary material is needed to make something functions
well in particular circumstances as Sen states that “… we must take note that a disable person
may not be able to do many things an able bodied individual can, with the same bundles of
communities (Sen 1985 cited in James 2006: 444). This makes clearer sense when James
connects the notion of functioning to MDGs goal 2 the completion of a full course of primary
schooling.

As for goal number two, its indicators are not justifiable. According to the evidence from
UNESCO-UNICEF Monitoring Learning Achievement (MLA), James (2006: 447) concludes
7
that completing primary schooling is not the same thing as achieving of certain minimum levels
of mastery in literacy, numeracy, and life skills. The later makes sense of functioning well of
education system. What is clear is that a number of pupil enrolled means not much in terms of
supporting their live later on but what is need is the quality of schooling they received should
addressed in the MDGs framework.

Moreover, there is no global monitoring system which independently oversees the operation of
the Millennium Projects (UN 2005: 18). According to the WB (2006) the current system works
as the following. At the global level, the UN Secretary General is to report annually to the
General Assembly on the progress of MDGs and to report more comprehensively every five
years. The UN agencies have been designated as official data source and are expected to conduct
baseline and current MDG statistics from country sources. What is missing from this monitoring
system is the independent body to objectively assess the progress of Millennium projects.
Logically, it is less acceptable for self-assessment in the development.

In conclusion, this paper has explored MDGs through three aspects including the MDG
development approach, methodology and some particular indicators. I have argued that the MDG
framework has been based on the problematic assumptions underpinning the approach,
methodology and construction of some indicators. Regarding the approach, the problem is that
MDG framework has imposed its series of strategies from the top down to the bottom or, in other
words, from developed countries to developing countries and ultimately had lead to
incompatibility. In addition to this problem, it also represented neoliberal economic framework
which arguably had brought about increase in inequality. The final point to the problematic
approach is that the MDG framework is globally fixed formula which had caused incompatible.
To the methodology, three key points have been discussed. The state-centric method is
problematic because it does not ensure a fair distribution and representation. Then too optimistic
estimation is also problematic because it had missed out on the proper solution rather than
wasting some resources and times with unrealistic expectation. The final point regarding
methodology is that it is overwhelming quantitative. To the construction of goals particularly
goal one and two, there is problem with less ambitious of development that could lead to
unevenly development. In short, the assumptions underpinned development approach; methods
and the goals have been examined and found problematic in the process to reach the MDGs by
2015.
8
References

Addison, Tony and Geoge Mavrotas. 2005. ‘Development Financing through ODA: Trend,
financing gap, and challenges’. In The millennium development goals : raising the resources to
tackle world poverty. Eds. F. Cheru and JR. C. Bradford. New York : Zed Books.

Addison, Tony, George Mavrotas and Mark McGillivray. 2005. ‘Aid, debt relief and new
sources of finance for meeting the millennium development goals’. Journal of International
Affairs.  (58)2: 113-128

Agarwal, Manmohan and Amit Shocon Ray. 2007. ‘Globalization and Millennium Development
Goals: Negotiating the challenge’. In Globalization and Millennium Development Goals:
Negotiating the challenge, eds. M. Agarwal and A. S. Ray. New Delhi: Esha Beteille.

Alston, Philip. 2005. ‘Ships Passing in the Night: the Current State of the Human Rights and the
Development Debate seen through the lens of the Millennium Development Goals’. Human
Rights Quarterly 27(3): 755-829.

Amin, Samir. 2006. ‘the Millennium Development Goals: a Critique from the South’. Monthly
Review 57(10): 1-15.

Antrobus, Peggy. 2005. 'Critiquing the MDGs from a Caribbean perspective 1'. Gender &
Development (13)1: 94 -104.

Bond, Patrick. 2006. ‘Global Governance Campaigning and MDGs: from top-down to bottom-up
anti-poverty work’. Third World Quarterly 27(2): 339-354.

Cornwall, Andrea and Celestine Nyamu-Musembi. 2004. ‘Putting the ‘rights-based approach’ to

development into perspective’. Third World Quarterly 25(8): 1415–1437.

Edelman, Marc and Angelique Haugerud. 2005. ‘Introduction: The Anthropology of

Development and Globalization’. In The Anthropology of Development and Globalization: From
Classical Political Economy to Contemporary Neoliberalism, eds. M. Edelman and A.
Haugerud. Malden: Blackwell.

Fukuda-Parr, Sakiko. 2004. ‘Millennium Development Goals: Why They Mather’ Global
Governance 10(4): 395-402.

Gaiha, Raghav. 2003. ‘Are the Millennium Goals of Poverty Reduction Useful?’. Oxford
Development Studies 31(1): 59-84.

Gurria, Martin and Alec Ian Gershberg. N.d. ‘Costing the Education MDGs:A Review of the
Leading Methodologies’. A review paper: the World Bank.

Higgott, Richard. 2000. ‘Contested Globalization: the Changing context and normative
challenges’. Review of International Studies 26: 131-153.

9
James, Jeffrey. 2006. ‘Misguided Investments in Meeting Millennium Development Goals: a
reconsideration using ends-based targets’. Third World Quarterly (27)3: 443-458.

Jolly, Richard. 2007. ‘Inequality in Historical Perspective’. In Advancing Development: Core

Theme in Global Economics, eds. G. Mavrotas and A. Shorrocks. New York : Palgrave
Macmillan.

Khor, Martin. 2000. Globalization and the South: Some Critical Issues. Penang: Third World
Network.

Nissanke, Machiko and Eric Thorbecke. 2007. ‘A Quest for Pro-poor Globalization’. In
Advancing Development: Core Theme in Global Economics, eds. G. Mavrotas and A. Shorrocks.
New York : Palgrave Macmillan.

Pogge, Thomas. 2004. ‘The First United Nations Millennium Development Goal: a cause for
celebration?’ Journal of Human Development 5(3): 377-397.

Reddy, Sanjay and Antoine Heuty. 2004. ‘Achieving the MDGs: A Critique and a Strategy’.
Discussion paper: Columbia University.

Reddy, Sanjay and Antoine Heuty. 2006’ Achieving the Millennium Development Goals:
What’s wrong with existing analytical models?’. DESA Working Paper No. 30. Columbia
University.

Satterthwaite, David. 2003. ‘The Millennium Development Goals and urban poverty reduction:
great expectations and nonsense statistics’. Environment and Urbanization (15) 2: 179-190.

UNDP. 2008. Strategies for the MDGs. Accessed 01 October 2008. Available at:
http://www.undp.org/mdg/strategy.shtml

UN Millennium Project. 2005. Investing in development: a practical plan to achieve the

Millennium Development Goals. London : Earthscan.

United Nations Secretary-General. 2001. Road map towards the implementation of the United
Nations Millennium Declaration. New York: United Nations.

United Nations. 2000. United Nations Millennium Declaration. Geneva: United Nations.

World Health Organization. 2005. Health and the millennium development goals. Geneva:
World Health Organization.
World Bank. 2006. ‘Global Monitoring Report’. Washington DC: the World bank.

10