In 2015 the United Nations Millennium Development Goals are due to expire. Eight clearly defined goals for human development, each with a set of measurable targets, were agreed by Heads of State at the UN during the visionary days leading up to the threshold of a new millennium on January 1 2000. A promise was made that by the year 2015 the international community would ensure that each goal was achieved.
The Goals (the MDGs) represented a breakthrough for the international community. For the first time ever a common development agenda for the human species had been defined and agreed upon in an unusual burst of cooperative vision by world governments. It can be argued that up until the 1990s the development agenda was, in spite of the rhetoric, driven by the politics of the Cold War. When the iron curtain fell there was a decade of conversation and thought exploring how governments could cooperate to actually make progress in advancing the purposes and principles for human development enshrined in the UN Charter and in the Declaration of Human Rights. Vast international conferences through the decade addressed such issues as population, environment and development, women, and the future of cities. The Millennium Goals were born out of the spirit of these conferences and a willingness to ask the question: what will work? How can the nations of the world harmonize their actions in such a way as to reduce the numbers of people living in dire poverty, lacking the most basic services in health care, education, water and sanitation – while at the same time protecting the environment?
The goodwill vision behind the Goals was clear. Eight goals were defined – each goal with a set of measurable targets. The Goals address specific issues: extreme poverty and hunger; universal education; gender equality; child health; maternal health; the battle against HIV/AIDS and other diseases; environmental sustainability; global cooperation to achieve the goals. Targets include reducing by half the proportion of people living in extreme poverty, below US$1.25 per day; reducing by two-thirds the number of deaths per thousand live births of children under 5; and, as part of a global partnership for development, increasing foreign development assistance by donor countries to 0.7% of GNP.
Measuring Progress
The Goals and Targets mean that it is now possible to measure progress each year on a country-by-country basis – or even a city-by-city basis. This has changed the agenda in development issues. Countries can be held accountable and aid can be targeted to what works in achieving the goals. Any citizen can easily carry out their own research to see if the promises made by leaders in 2000 are being met. Governments are challenged to work together on a common agenda – and civil society (professional organizations, popular development movements, local government, business etc) is also challenged to contribute in its own way. The dream was to unite not just governments, but peoples of the world in a cooperative, shared task.
Since 2000, the MDGs have had an impact on the imagination and thinking of governments. Instead of planning for national social development being driven by what money is available, or what money can be attracted from donor governments, successful administrations have begun to think: if we want to achieve one of the goals in our city or our province or our nation by 2015 what will we need to do now and next year and the year after - and how will we be able to do it?
From the goodwill perspective the MDGs mark a new dynamic at an international level in awakening a sense of purpose around actions to achieve fundamental freedoms like the freedom from want and the freedom from fear. Yet the Goals and the work that has been done and will continue to be done until 2015 in their name are only a faint beginning of what could be achieved if and when forces of goodwill throughout humanity are truly and authentically ‘woken up’.
If the forces of goodwill that exist in abundance in the human community were truly mobilized in support of the MDGs there could be a massive stimulation of the imaginative sense of what is possible. Hundreds of millions of people from all cultures and regions of the world might share the understanding that, with their help and with their engagement, problems of extreme poverty and the environmental damage that has up until now been associated with economic development could be eradicated in our lifetime.
The Dynamism Inherent in the Will
Some visionaries in national governments, political parties, international agencies, private business, and in the widespread citizens development movement have been persistent in their efforts to achieve the goals. They have applied the dynamism inherent in the will. Their accomplishments have in many cases, been remarkable and are a signpost of where we are headed.
There is evidence, two years before the MDGs are due to expire, that a number of the goals and the targets will be met – certainly cause for celebration and evidence that focus on the Goals and Targets has worked. Already the proportion of people living in extreme poverty (less than US$1.25 per day) is half of what it was in 1990 – and this might have been expected to be the most visionary goal. The proportion of people without access to reliable sources of drinking water is again half of what it was in 1990 – another target met. The health objectives in goal 6 (stop diseases like HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria from spreading and reverse the incidence of such diseases) have seen considerable progress. Primary school enrollment of girls equals that of boys – another target.
If current trends continue other Goals will probably not be met – in spite of efforts it is unlikely that all children will attend primary school by 2015. Goals 4 and 5 to reduce child mortality rates and improve maternal health concentrate on 75 countries where more than 95% of all maternal and child deaths occur. Only 9 of these countries are on track to achieve goal 5 – reduce by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio – and twenty-two of the 75 countries are expected to achieve goal 4 – reduce the under-five mortality rate by two-thirds.
Even where it is not expected that the Goals will be met there has in most areas been significant progress. Yet this still leaves unacceptable numbers of people in extreme poverty, and with little chance of meeting the most basic human needs for nutritious food, health care, fresh water, sanitation, educational opportunities. Pneumonia and diarrhea still cause more than 2 million preventable deaths a year. So as we approach 2015 there is a new will to focus efforts on truly building a world free from want and free from fear. Helen Clark, former New Zealand Prime Minister and head of the influential UN Agency UNDP (UN Development Program) recently called on governments and stakeholders to focus on a new effort in the remaining days before the end of the old Goals and the beginning of a new development agenda. Led by UNDP, 45 countries are working with an MDG Acceleration Framework to seek to achieve what is still just possible – and to meet national targets on time.
There are those who argue that as top down, government led goals it was to be expected that not all of the MDGs would be met on time. Politicians have too often used the goals only when they could help further their own short-term political purposes – not enough leaders have been willing to risk their political career and press for a rule-based non-discriminatory global trading and financial system (as specified in Goal 8), for example, or to aim to allocate 0.7% of GNP for development assistance targeted to the MDGs by 2015 (currently only five donor countries have met or exceeded this target and official development assistance from all developed countries is just 0.31% of combined national income). Without enough visionary leaders the MDGs have largely failed to become what they might have been: vibrant, living goals inspiring the multitudes of people of goodwill in every land.
A Universal Agenda
But while it is easy to ‘blame governments’ for a lack of authentic purpose it is also true that popular movements to achieve specific goals have never really taken off as they might have. And this is a responsibility all people of goodwill share. The MDGs, or whatever will replace them after 2015, can only be achieved if they have the support of wide sections of the population – and that support needs to be generated by everybody who believes in a world of justice, equity and right relations.
Imagine, for example, if associations of people of goodwill (small as well as large, local as well as national and international, esoteric as well as exoteric) were so inspired by the opportunity to contribute to the achievement of this universal agenda that they chose to do something, anything, to help meet one of the targets in some area. This level of popular goodwill does not ask too much of people, or more than what might reasonably be expected – just a sense of wanting to play some small part in a global movement to improve living conditions for the most vulnerable and to repair an already damaged natural environment.
Right now, over the coming two years, there is a chance, a rare opportunity, to ignite just such a popular will to build a better world, centered on a new set of goals replacing the MDGs after they have expired in 2015. There is an unprecedented level of thinking (research teams, academic papers, focus groups, media commentaries) discussion, debate and negotiation at national and global levels, a meditation if you like, on what will replace the MDGs after 2015. For the first time there is an effort to engage the broadest possible array of participants in this initial discussion process – a process that will lead to decisions by governments at the United Nations (facilitated by UN agencies) on a set of goals and an agenda for the post-2015 world.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has appointed a High Level Panel to advise him on the post-2015 development agenda. Jointly chaired by the Heads of State of Indonesia, Liberia and UK the panel of 27 eminent persons includes senior government ministers, as well as leaders from civil society and the private sector. The Panel is holding regular meetings addressing a set of key questions, and each meeting includes a day of consultations with civil society. In 2012 the Panel met twice, in New York and London, and in the first half of this year they are scheduled to meet three times (Liberia, Bali and New York).
In addition to the High Level Panel on the post 2015 goals a Special Advisor to the UN Secretary General has been appointed to oversee the process of involving as many stakeholders as possible in reaching agreement on future goals. A Sustainable Development Solutions Network consisting of leading sustainable development experts and academic institutions from around the world has been appointed by the UN to mobilize scientific and technical expertise from academia, civil society, and the private sector in support of sustainable-development problem solving at local, national, and global scales. The Network embraces proponents of different views on how to address key issues of extreme poverty, rising inequality and sustaining the planet. For example the Leadership Council of the network includes economist Jeffrey Sachs together with sometime MDG critic, economist Paul Collier. Following the Rio+20 conference in 2012 representatives of the governments of 70 nations are part of a UN Open Working Group to develop a set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). UN agencies such as the environment program, UNEP, the new agency fostering the empowerment of women, UN Women, and the development program with offices in every developing country, UNDP, are participating in a UN System Task Team coordinating preparations for beyond 2015. And finally the UN is conducting, for the first time ever, a global survey, My World, inviting citizens to vote on which six development issues most impact their lives.
All of this suggests a degree of focus and energy within the UN and amongst governments that has never before been summoned around any issue. The purpose is to evoke an unprecedented measure of goodwill and visionary purpose into the negotiating chambers of the UN. Beyond this there is a widespread effort to bring to life a goodwill movement centered on the new set of goals. Over 500 civil society organizations representing all regions of the world are working under the banner ‘Beyond 2015’ to campaign for a strong and legitimate successor to the MDGs. Through ‘The World We Want 2015’ movement, the UN and civil society organizations are together coordinating consultations in over 50 countries as well as a global consultation process focused around 9 themes – inviting comment from citizens as well as from groups, organizations, businesses and other interested parties. We all need to take part in this conversation and consultation – all need to contribute to the igniting of a wave of goodwill.
This overall initiative to mobilize goodwill on a global scale has never been attempted before. Its success will depend on the energy and will invested by millions of concerned individuals. As a small contribution World Goodwill is developing a program to share information on the process and offer an easy, clear guide to how anyone can take part in the consultations. From time to time the meditation-based Cycle of Conferences Initiative will be shining a light on important gatherings contributing to the post-2015 development agenda. Throughout 2013 and 2014 we will be providing regular news about the MDGs and the post-2015 process in the Newsletter.
