Presentation slides from David Hulme,Executive Director, Brooks World Poverty Institute and Professor of Development Studies at the University of Manchester, Sussex Development Lecture, Learning from the Millennium Development Goals

1. Learning from the Millennium
Development Goals
David Hulme
Creating knowledge to end poverty

2. Introduction
• MDGs – the world’s biggest promise
• Complicated history – not planned
• MDGs used to achieve many different aims
1. Strengthen UN credibility
2. Legitimizing the status quo (de-politicization)
3. Improve planning and financing of development
4. Motivating a “results-based” approach
5. Norm change – “ending global poverty”

3. MDG Summary
• Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
• Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education
• Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower
women
• Goal 4: Reduce child mortality
• Goal 5: Improve maternal health
• Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other
diseases
• Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability
• Goal 8: Develop a Global Partnership for
Development

4. MDGs – HD meets RBM
in an unfair world
• The content of the MDGs is human
development (5½ out of 8)
• But, a minimalist basic needs concept not
human rights
• The framing is results-based management
– goal/target/indicator – a low trust concept
• MDGs reflect the IPE of the Millennium –
led by rich world with RBM for developing
countries but not for rich countries (Goal 8)
• MDG focus - ends not means - reflected
lack of an international consensus

5. Contribution and Attribution
• “The end of extreme poverty is at hand…the MDGs…are
bold but achievable…a crucial mid-station on the path to
ending poverty by 2025” (Sachs 2005)
• “The setting of utopian goals means aid workers will
focus efforts on infeasible tasks, instead of feasible tasks
that will do some good” (Easterly 2006)
• “The MDGs: ‘M’ for misunderstood” (Vandemoortele
2007)
• “I do not believe in the MDGs. I think of them as a Major
Distracting Gimmick” (Antrobus 2003)
• Attribution paradox – achievement of MDGs mainly
because of China and India - where MDGs have least
influence/impact!

6. Understanding the MDGs as
Norms
• The MDGs were ‘as good as it gets’ in the
international political economy of 2000/2001
• I argue that the evidence indicates that they
have been beneficial overall - but limited impact
• The focus on selecting and using them for
planning, financing and monitoring is
misplaced…’lack of political will’
• Analyse MDGs as a vehicle to promote the
international social norm of “ending extreme
poverty”…to create political will

7. International Norm Dynamics
• Comparisons with abolition of slavery, end of
apartheid, rules of war (Fukuda-Parr and Hulme)
• Norms can spread across national populations
and then countries – can stall and reverse
• Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink’s model
– 3 stages
1.Norm emergence, leading to a ‘tipping point’
2.Norm cascade, across countries
3.Norm internalization – the norm is applied

8. Finnemore and Sikkink
Stage 1
Norm Emergence
Stage 2
Norm Cascade
Stage 3
Norm Internalization
Actors
Norm entrepreneurs
with organizational
platforms
States,
International organizations,
Networks
Law,
Professions,
Bureaucracy
Motives
Altruism,
Empathy,
Ideational
commitment
Legitimacy,
Reputation,
Esteem
Conformity
Dominant
mechanisms
Persuasion
Socialization,
Institutionalization,
Demonstration
Habit,
Institutionalization

9. Stage I: Norm emergence and norm
entrepreneurs
• Norm change is driven by norm entrepreneurs
with organizational platforms – examples
• Jim Grant (ED, UNICEF) – orchestrated the
Children’s Summit (1990) & internalisation
• Nafis Sadik (ED, UNFPA) – managed the
paradigm shift to reproductive health
(emergence)
• Clare Short/Utstein Group (cascade and
internalisation), Ann Pettifor, Martin Khor, and
others
• Women’s movement – many norm entrepreneurs
who highlighted role of gender inequality in
poverty and shaped civil society contributions

10. MDGs and Norm entrepreneurs
(cont.)
• These norm entrepreneurs had diverse
motivations, but had a commitment to ending
poverty as an ethical imperative.
• Many advocated a broad, human-centred
development paradigm, drawing from basic
needs, human development and feminist
approaches
• Together they drove the UN conference agenda

11. Message entrepreneurs
• The drafting of the OECD International
Development Targets (IDTs) in 1996 and the
UN’s MDGs was undertaken by a different set of
people: message entrepreneurs
• These were institutionally embedded and they
focused on organisational goals.
• Message entrepreneurs have personal
normative positions, but their primary function is
to achieve consensus (a purpose of many
intergovernmental organisations).

12. Message entrepreneurs (cont.)
• In the drafting of the MDGs, these message
entrepreneurs included:
– James Michel and officials at DAC in the mid-1990s
– John Ruggie and the Office of the Secretary General of the
UN
– Mark Malloch Brown, Administrator at UNDP
• Usually skilled diplomats and senior bureaucrats rather
than economists or development specialists
• They turned the UN declarations and conference goals
into something acceptable across the 189 UN
delegations, the World Bank, IMF, OECD, DAC and UN
specialised agencies - the MDGs (2001)
• Major negotiations around Goal 8 (in) and reproductive
health (out)

13. Stage II - norm cascade
• The MDGs had global consensus, but still the process
of cascade was dependent on follow-up.
• Obstacles remained - the US was ambivalent or
hostile; NGOs criticised MDG content and process of
formulation; rich countries keen to avoid Goal 8
implementation
• Nonetheless, this was partially overcome. From their
launch in September 2001 the MDGs influenced
international development events
– Monterrey Consensus in 2002 (Bush launches a major
initiative)
– Brown and Blair used them in the G8 Gleneagles
summit and EU Presidency in 2005
– Celebrities (Bono, Bob Geldof, and Angelina Jolie)
mobilised public support for the MDGs.

14. Stage III Norm internalization
• In policy documents the MDGs appear to have
total acceptance – national and donor goals,
General Assembly 2005 and 2010.
• But, in action (budgets, implementation and
accountability) internalization has varied.
• UK compared to Italy
• Rwanda compared to Zimbabwe
• The big success - the MDGs as an emerging EU
norm?
– For example, the EU required the states acceding in
2002 to increase their aid budgets to 0.33% of GNI by
2015. A commitment to reducing poverty globally is now
a requirement of joining the European ‘club’.

15. MDGs as a Supernorm
• Sakiko and I use the concept of the MDGs as a
‘supernorm’ - a cluster of interrelated norms
grouped into a unified and coherent framework.
• Conceptually, the MDGs constitute a single
package; although each of the eight MDGs is
important as an individual norm, they are
strategic components of the broader supernorm
that extreme, dehumanizing poverty is morally
unacceptable in an affluent world.

16. MDGs as a Supernorm (cont.)
• The great strength of the MDG supernorm is its
communication of a complex set of norms in
clear and relatively simple terms.
• This is also their great weakness…‘too long’
• They skirted around and did not resolve
ideational divides within the international
community - especially the links between
economic and social policy.
• Some norm entrepreneurs saw the MDGs as
little more than pretence. Particularly with regard
to gender issues and international relations
(Goal 8).

17. The Post-2015 Agenda... Post MDGs
• 2015 will be as complicated as 2000/2001 but
very different (the rise of the BICs, energy
insecurity, G20, MENA revolution) but also very
similar (Doha stalled, climate change stalled,
international community fragmented)
• Four particular ways in which the post-2015
agenda can maintain the progress achieved by
MDGs and improve on it

18. Post-2015 Agenda - conclusions
1. From measurement to voice – activate the norm
entrepreneurs now
2. Targets and indicators need to be set at the national
level – global targets inappropriate for specific
countries and negate ‘ownership’ (and democracy)
3. Post-2015 process needs to be linked to policies and
plans – not a PRS (WB/IMF) and MDG (rest of UN)
divide
4. The Post-2015 Agenda needs to be framed to impact
on social norms not as planning tool. How can the
global super-norm of the moral unacceptability of
extreme poverty be cascaded and internalised…
…stop children dying now…

19. The Future of the MDGs
• The MDGs can be understood as a part of the
emergence of a supernorm that sees extreme
poverty in an affluent world as being morally
unacceptable.
• Though far from complete, this is changing
norms of international behaviour
• Need to frame the post-2015 agenda in terms of
norm change

20. Further reading
• David Hulme (2010) Global Poverty: How Global
Governance is Failing the Poor, (London:
Routledge).
• Sakiko Fukuda-Parr and David Hulme, (2011),
‘International Norm Dynamics and the “End of
Poverty”: Understanding the Millennium
Development Goals’, Journal of Global
Governance, 17(1), pp. 17-36.
• David Hulme and James Scott, (2010), ‘The
Political Economy of the MDGs: Retrospect and
Prospect for the World’s Biggest Promise’, New
Political Economy, 15(2), pp. 293-306.

21. Status of the MDGs
MDG Status in latest data
1. Halve extreme poverty Globally on track because of China but unlikely to be met in sub-Saharan Africa.
2. Universal primary
education
Close to target but will probably not be achieved in sub-Saharan Africa and South
Asia.
3. Gender equality Likely to be achieved at primary and secondary school level but other targets are
lagging.
4. Reduce child mortality
by three-quarters
Significant reductions in all regions but three-quarters of countries “off target”.
5. Reduce maternal
mortality by two-thirds
Least progress of all the MDGs with 500,000 pregnancy-related deaths per annum.
Very problematic in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
6. Combat HIV/AIDS,
malaria and other diseases
New HIV infections and AIDS deaths have peaked. HIV/AIDS remains a particular
problem in sub-Saharan Africa. TB rates are falling, but not faster enough to meet the
target.
7. Environmental
sustainability
Access to water target likely to be met but sanitation is lagging. Limited progress
with CO2 emissions and deforestation.
8. Develop a global
partnership
No evidence of a step change in relationships. Aid at 1990 levels in 2008. Trade talks
stalled. Climate change – limited progress.