Millenniums Development Goals (MDGs)
have received substantive critique as a un/successful political agreement
between 191 countries on one development framework. “The goals and targets
are interrelated and they represent a partnership between the developed
countries and the developing countries to create an environment - which is
conducive to development and the elimination of poverty” (World Bank 2009,
p.135).
“Perhaps these eight goals,
twenty one targets and sixty indicators seem to be so self-evidently desirable
that the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have largely escaped conceptual
scrutiny of any kindJames
2006, p.443). However, more than them
being the self-evident desire of a nation, they also expanded international
politico-development consensus through the Millennium Declaration signed by 189
countries in 2000 and subsequently by more member states in 2005.
However, despite substantive
achievements, after twelve years of implementation, MDGs can also be referred
to as Mirage Desisting Goals and ceaseless targets, especially in the
large populous developing countries. Primarily due to increasing goalposts
which intern the level playing field for the lagging states or the region by
increasing the maximum observed values for the respective dimension, the
goalposts in India, for example, have increased due to success in social
indicators such as life expectancy, mortality and population growth in the
southern states, while slow progress in northern states. One of the most cited
cases is the state of Kerala - the state which stood at the top of the Human
Development Index in last three decades has fallen in 2011. Kerala is now in a
flux of increased performance on social performance, but weak remittances. As a result, there is an increasing gap
between the MDG targets within the country and overall progress across the
states.
The aim of this paper is not to defy
the need for or the importance of MDGs, rather, to show that (James 2006, p.
443), when one looks at the MDGs from the micro-perspective of a large populous
developing nation, such as India, important questions emerge such as why
developing countries fail to achieve their targets despite policy direction,
operational design and state intent? Is it due to escalating goalposts
across the region within a country or failure to spot the goal in the changing
level playing ground? In this paper, I
will explore the above questions and analyse current policies and operational
strategies that reduces the gap in MDGs within a nation.
For achieving MDGs, policy makers have
to promote a balance between social and economic indicators. The paper
concludes that policy priorities have to “shift from chasing goalposts
towards changing goalposts by creating synergy between growth of
tangible assets such as natural, physical and financial capital and
non-tangible capital (social and human)” (Prowse and Scott 2008). Balanced
growth between these five can change goalposts by enhancing the ability of
communities to cope with and respond to the wider changing development
pressures (Daze et al. 2009).
References
Dazé, A. Ambrose, K. and Ehrhart, C.
2009, ‘Climate vulnerability and capacity analysis’, Care International,
<http://www.careclimatechange.org/cvca/CARE_CVCAHandbook.pdf>
accessed 22 Nov. 2011.
James, Jeffrey 2006, ‘Misguided
investments in meeting Millennium Development Goals: A reconsideration using
ends-based targets’, Third World Quarterly, vol. 27, no. 3, pp. 443-458.
Prowse, M and Scott, L. 2008, ‘Assets
and adaptation: An emerging debate’, IDS Bulletin, vol.4, pp. 42-52.
World Bank 2009, Atlas of global
development-A visual guide to the world’s greatest challenges, Second
Edition, Collins Geo and World Bank, Washinton D.C., USA.
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