This document outlines actions that poor and rich countries should take ahead of the 2010 MDG Review Summit. Poor countries are urged to undertake progress analyses, develop national plans to accelerate MDG progress, localize the MDGs, improve resource management, regularly monitor progress, increase accountability, and strengthen parliamentary roles. Rich countries should fulfill aid commitments, increase aid effectiveness, reform trade policies, and report on MDG commitment progress. The Millennium Campaign believes the MDGs can be achieved if countries demonstrate strong ownership and commitment backed by adequate resources and accountability.

1. ENDPOVERTY
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AHEAD OF MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS REVIEW SUMMIT, CITIZENS OF RICH
AND POOR COUNTRIES SAY TO THEIR LEADERS: "Leave empty promises at home!
Bring concrete plans for urgent action to achieve the Goals to New York."
REMEMBER THE PROMISE?
At the United Nations Millennium Summit in the year 2000, world leaders made a
historic promise: they signed the Millennium Declaration, agreeing to work
together to improve the lives of the world's poorest people. For the first time, rich
and poor countries agreed on a global compact and recognized their shared
responsibility to end poverty and its root causes once and for all.
Out of this Declaration came the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), 8
promises which provide a roadmap to halve global poverty and hunger, ensure
universal primary education, promote gender equality and empower women,
vastly reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, halt and reverse the
spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, ensure environmental
sustainability, and create a global partnership for development.
Over the past 10 years, the world has seen unprecedented development
successes. But progress has been uneven and significant gaps and
challenges still remain.
The global economic recession has slowed, and in some cases reversed,
progress on the MDGs. Last year, about 55-90 million additional people lived in
poverty as a result of the recession, and the number of chronically malnourished
people reached one billion for the first time in world history. In addition, global
development challenges such as climate change, food and energy insecurity
and disaster risks have compounded existing challenges in many poor countries.
The recession caused by the global financial and economic crisis has put
pressure on aid budgets. Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) has been
rising gradually but is still below the 2010 European Union-agreed target of 0.56%
of Gross National Income (GNI) and the Gleneagles target for G-8 nations to
double aid to Africa by 2010 has not been realised. Despite consensus on the
Paris Declaration and the Accra Agenda for Action, progress is far too slow on
delivery of the commitments to aid effectiveness.
The September 2010 MDG Review Summit aims to accelerate progress towards all
the MDGs by 2015. The Summit will comprehensively review successes, best
practices and lessons learned; identify obstacles, gaps, challenges and
opportunities; and propose concrete strategies for action to achieve the Goals.
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TAKING URGENT ACTION, TOWARDS THE SUMMIT AND BEYOND
POOR COUNTRIES MUST:
Provide an Analysis of Progress
• Undertake a comprehensive national analysis of progress in MDG implementation
with the active involvement of all stakeholders: government, donors, Parliaments,
the private sector and civil society. The analysis must:
a. Clearly identify the factors associated with success and define strategies to
ensure that the Goals are achieved by 2015.
b. Disaggregate information by gender, region and vulnerable population
groups, be conducted in a transparent and timely fashion and make all
findings publicly available.
Develop National Breakthrough Action Plans for MDG Acceleration
•Explore innovative approaches to reaching the targets and incorporate strategies
for scaling up and sustaining successful small scale strategies.
•Include appropriate, relevant and specific strategies and interventions that take
into consideration specific needs and circumstances to address gender inequality
and the needs of people with disabilities, indigenous people and other traditionally
excluded groups such as religious minorities, low caste groups, people in remote
and marginalized geographic regions, people living with HIV/AIDS, and people
living in or emerging from conflict.
•Strengthen social protection systems in poor countries given the recent global fuel,
food, climate and financial crises in which the poor and the vulnerable in many
developing countries were the hardest hit.
Localise the MDGS
•Mainstream and integrate the MDGs into local development plans.
•Prioritise the MDGs in resource allocations at both the national and sub-national
levels.
•Implement appropriate decentralisation policies to enhance local capacities.
•Empower local authorities to take the lead in MDG implementation.
Provide Efficient Domestic Resource Management for MDG Achievement
•Improve and make transparent local, regional and national budgets for the
efficient use of domestic resources.
•Prioritise the MDGs in allocating such resources.
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Regularly Monitor and Assess MDG Progress
•Operationalise formal mechanisms for on-going monitoring and assessment of
MDG progress, including defining roles for Parliaments and civil society.
•Put in place institutional arrangements and mechanisms for taking corrective
action.
•Increase efforts to disaggregate MDG data, which would allow for more accurate
assessments of disparities in progress.
•Disseminate reports on MDG progress to encourage debate and discussion among
a wide range of national stakeholders, starting at the community level.
Be Accountable to Citizens
•Encourage citizen monitoring of their MDG entitlements to ensure that MDG-based
legal and policy frameworks are translating into actual implementation on the
ground and that citizens have increased access to basic services.
•Design and implement mechanisms for political leaders and duty bearers to be
accountable to their citizens, creating enabling environments for citizen-state
engagement and enhancing citizens' access to information to encourage
engagement with their leaders.
Strengthen the Role of Parliaments
•Empower Parliaments and local representatives to play a major role in ensuring
MDG achievement through existing legislative, oversight and other functions.
•Create and support specific Parliamentary structures on the MDGs in all national
Parliaments as well as in regional and global Parliamentary associations.
RICH COUNTRIES MUST:
Fulfill Aid Commitments
•Establish national action plans with binding timetables showing clear plans to
provide 0.7% of GNI as ODA by 2015.
•Agree on a new collective interim target of at least 0.63% of GNI as ODA by 2012.
•Ensure that any resources from innovative financing mechanisms and those to be
used to fight climate change will be additional to and not substituting for existing
ODA commitments.
•Fulfill commitments made at the G-8 and G-20 in London, L'Aquila and Pittsburgh in
2009.
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Increase Aid Effectiveness
•Reform, simplify and harmonize the way aid is delivered, consistent with the
commitments in both the Paris Declaration and the Accra Agenda for Action.
•Establish binding timetables, measure indicators and monitor progress on aid
effectiveness.
•Fight aid fragmentation through a better division of labour and better coordination.
Reform Trade and Agricultural Policies
• Reform trade and agricultural policies to remove barriers preventing poor
producers from lifting themselves out of poverty.
• Increase export opportunities of developing countries.
•Assess and address national trade and development policies that are
contradictory and make legislative changes.
•Lead the process for a successful and pro-poor conclusion of the Doha trade
negotiations.
Produce Analysis of Progress on MDG Commitments
• Produce comprehensive yearly progress reports on MDG commitments. Such
reports should include an assessment of the outcomes achieved as well as stronger
accountability mechanisms to monitor, track and assess progress.
SUCCESS IS POSSIBLE!
The Millennium Campaign believes that the MDGs are achievable, even in the poorest
countries, if there is strong national ownership of the development process, sound
development policies and adequate levels of investment, backed by predictable and
sufficient resources. However, for this to happen, both developed and developing
country governments must agree on instituting an accountability mechanism for the
promises and commitments made in the past, present and future.
www.endpoverty2015.org