84
continued as before, many of the significant actors in development publicly committed to the MDGs as a shared vision and framework for their efforts. Funds were
raised using the MDG frameworks, and actions under the framework became targets
for efforts.
Some viewed the MDGs as leading the way in lifting billions out of poverty.
Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University declared that the “Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs) mark a historical and effective method of global mobilization to
achieve a set of important social priorities worldwide.”
However, others were far more critical. William Easterly of New York University
noted that “[m]easuring social and economic progress is not at all as straightforward
as the discussion of the MDGs makes it seem. Setting targets in a particular way will
make some regions look better, and others look worse depending on a number of
choices that any target-setting exercise must make.”
It is challenging to provide a robust quantitative correlation between the MDGs
and the improvements in the four metrics that took place. One approach by John
McArthur and Krista Rasmussen of the Brookings Institution measured the rate of
improvement of MDG metrics before 2000 to the rate of improvement in the period
2000–2015. They found that most rates of progress accelerated after the adoption of
the MDGs, especially in low-income countries and sub-Saharan African countries,
while “middle-income countries typically registered larger cumulative gains but
less acceleration over the period.”
Further, “the greatest advances were in matters of life and death. At least
20.9 million and as many as 30.3 million additional lives were saved due to accelerated rates of progress, with sub-Saharan Africa accounting for approximately twothirds of the total.” Note that this analysis was applied to all the MDGs, not just the
food and water metrics, and so other factors, like improvements in health services,
also played an essential role in declines in mortality rates.
However, showing a correlation between the MDGs and increases in rates of
improvements in different aspects of development is not the same as proving direct
causation. It is impossible to know how institutions and organizations would have
behaved had there been no MDGs.
From a public policy perspective, the Millennium Development Goals were perceived as successfully mobilizing action on development issues, even they did not
specifically address energy. This naturally led to consideration of what would succeed them following 2015. Addressing energy and creating a more ambitious set of
“Sustainable Development Goals” became the focus of the third United Nations
Conference on Environment and Development held in 2012.
Significantly, the Millennium Development Goals did not address energy despite
the connection between energy and human well-being. In 2005, an unsuccessful
attempt was made to add energy targets to the MDGs. However, in 2010, the UN
General Assembly declared that 2012 would be the International Year of Sustainable
Energy for All.
P. Saundry and B. L. Ruddell
continued as before, many of the significant actors in development publicly committed to the MDGs as a shared vision and framework for their efforts. Funds were
raised using the MDG frameworks, and actions under the framework became targets
for efforts.
Some viewed the MDGs as leading the way in lifting billions out of poverty.
Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University declared that the “Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs) mark a historical and effective method of global mobilization to
achieve a set of important social priorities worldwide.”
However, others were far more critical. William Easterly of New York University
noted that “[m]easuring social and economic progress is not at all as straightforward
as the discussion of the MDGs makes it seem. Setting targets in a particular way will
make some regions look better, and others look worse depending on a number of
choices that any target-setting exercise must make.”
It is challenging to provide a robust quantitative correlation between the MDGs
and the improvements in the four metrics that took place. One approach by John
McArthur and Krista Rasmussen of the Brookings Institution measured the rate of
improvement of MDG metrics before 2000 to the rate of improvement in the period
2000–2015. They found that most rates of progress accelerated after the adoption of
the MDGs, especially in low-income countries and sub-Saharan African countries,
while “middle-income countries typically registered larger cumulative gains but
less acceleration over the period.”
Further, “the greatest advances were in matters of life and death. At least
20.9 million and as many as 30.3 million additional lives were saved due to accelerated rates of progress, with sub-Saharan Africa accounting for approximately twothirds of the total.” Note that this analysis was applied to all the MDGs, not just the
food and water metrics, and so other factors, like improvements in health services,
also played an essential role in declines in mortality rates.
However, showing a correlation between the MDGs and increases in rates of
improvements in different aspects of development is not the same as proving direct
causation. It is impossible to know how institutions and organizations would have
behaved had there been no MDGs.
From a public policy perspective, the Millennium Development Goals were perceived as successfully mobilizing action on development issues, even they did not
specifically address energy. This naturally led to consideration of what would succeed them following 2015. Addressing energy and creating a more ambitious set of
“Sustainable Development Goals” became the focus of the third United Nations
Conference on Environment and Development held in 2012.
Significantly, the Millennium Development Goals did not address energy despite
the connection between energy and human well-being. In 2005, an unsuccessful
attempt was made to add energy targets to the MDGs. However, in 2010, the UN
General Assembly declared that 2012 would be the International Year of Sustainable
Energy for All.
P. Saundry and B. L. Ruddell