Priorities for meeting the Millennium Development Goals
John McArthur and Jeffrey Sachs
THE MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT Goals (MDGs) are more than mere aspirations. They are indeed more than shared global goals. They are the international community’s time-bound and quantified commitment to cut sharply the extent of extreme poverty in the world by 2015. The MDGs are achievable, but many parts of the world are not on track to achieve them.What is needed – urgently – is international follow-through on the commitments.
Today, international momentum towards the MDGs is in an entirely different state than even two years ago. The year 2002 was a watershed year for global development policy. At the Financing for Development conference in Monterrey, Mexico, consensus was forged on the need for global partnership in order to achieve the MDGs.The rich countries pledged significant increases in development assistance – specifically, to "make concrete efforts towards the target of 0.7 percent of gross national product [in official development assistance]" – while the developing countries committed themselves to sound governance and use of resources. At the World Summit for Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa, all member countries of the United Nations reaffirmed their commitment to reducing poverty and protecting the environment, again placing the MDGs at the centre of international development policy.
By the end of 2002, it looked as if the world had not only agreed on the centrality of the MDGs, but was also gearing up to take the actions needed to achieve them.