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Tida is a 7 year-old girl. She leaves in Cambodia, a Country that scores well in terms of progress towards the MDGs. Yet, Tida doesn’t go to school, lives in a house with no electricity nor sanitation. Should she get ill, she would not have access to a hospital.
Tida is only one in a hundreds million people who are left behind their Country’s development. At a time when discussions are intensifying on what should replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) after their expiry date in 2015, it is more and more critical to figure out how the new global ‘goals’ will be able to take into account inequality.
But let’s step back a bit: is it a good idea at all to have global goals like the MDGs? I believe that the answer is a big yes. The MDGs represent the most important ‘pact’ ever made for international development. They have been tremendously useful in framing development dialogue, advocacy and investments and in fostering a culture of ‘measuring’ progress, which — despite numerous technical caveats – has great advantages.
So, as we approach the end of the current MDGs (2015), the question is not whether to continue them. The question should be how to revise them in a way that takes into account (a) what doesn’t work with the current goals, and (b) what needs to be captured in terms of emerging developing challenges.
Both (a) and (b) highlight that a stronger focus should be placed on inequality as a key development challenge. On the one hand, the current MDGs have done a fairly poor job on tracking and highlighting inequality. Actually, I would argue that the emphasis on reaching targets measured at the level of national and global averages provides and incentive to overlook inequality and focus on ‘quick wins’, meaning reaching those that are closest to the MDGs minimum thresholds. On the other hand, it is pretty clear that inequality is becoming a key (to some the key) development challenge for the next decade. While the world is on track to achieve at least some MDGs, stark disparities persist and in many cases increase. Disparities between the rich and the poor, between urban and rural regions across the developing world.
The same message comes loud and clear also from the ‘developed’ world. Whether we base our views on robust research (see the excellent 2011 OECD report “Divided We Stand”) or to the voice of the street (see Occupy Wall Street and similar), what we get is a clear indication that the development model that many countries are following is one that is benefiting only a few and not favorable to many.
Now, at this precise point of my argument, I know what many economists out there are thinking: inequalities are part of the game. Especially in developing countries one needs to accept inequalities because these will reduce as growth kicks in and development trickles down to poorer people and regions. In many cases, these arguments are factually wrong. There are plenty of examples of Countries where growth doesn’t quite trickle down, and where inequality comes to undermine social cohesion and to threaten future growth and development. But even if the ‘pro-‐inequality’ arguments of Milton Friedman’s disciples were correct, I would argue that the defining challenge of the next decade is not to find the quickest path to development, it is about identifying the fairest path.
If we accept this approach, then the UN and the MDGs have a critical role to
play. The role of the UN is to embrace and support a development approach that balances out equity and efficiency and the MDGs should be designed to monitor and foster this. Development as a fair game, not as a timed race.
My proposal: let’s include in the post-‐2015 framework a new MDG conceived as an indicator of inclusive growth. For the sake of simplicity and communication, I will call this the “inclusive growth MDG” or – at the risk of being ridiculous – “iMDG”. This goal could be supported by two main sets of targets and indicators: a first set could focus on individual inclusion, i.e. a measurement of progress in reducing disparities between the rich and the poor, not only in income but capturing the inclusiveness of progress across other key MDGs (or other key variables such as financial inclusion). The second set of targets/indicators could focus on territorial inclusion, for instance the disparities between rural and urban areas and between leading and lagging regions. In a more sophisticated version the iMDG could also measure the degree of inclusiveness in terms of gender, ethnicity or other groups. This could be determined Nationally for greater relevance and ownership.
Designing and implementing the iMDG will be challenging both for political and technical reasons. Politically, it will imply giving greater visibility to inequality. It will mean taking a courageous step towards addressing -‐ rather than covering up -‐ the problem. Not every government will be willing to do this. Think of how China will like an emphasis on internal disparities. Or to what extent the US will accept to question the American ‘model’ and be open – on a global stage – about America’s alarming trends in income inequality.
Technically, measuring inequality is not straightforward. For instance, while individual income inequality can be relatively easy to measure, based on Gini coefficients and similar -‐ territorial inequality is a trickier one to measure, especially considering the need for MDGs to be used in and comparable across countries.
But the whole point here is not to reach exact measurements. The point is to draw everybody’s attention to Tida, yes, that 7-‐year-‐old girl that lives in a ‘fast developing’ country but still has no future. The future MDGs cannot ignore her.
