The Power of Numbers: A Critical Review of MDG Targets for Human Development and Human Rights

1. The Power of Numbers: A Critical Review of MDG Targets for Human Development and Human Rights Sakiko Fukuda-Parr Professor of International Affairs, The New School Dag HammarsjkoldFdn Seminar Stockholm, 16 May, 2013

2. Global goals • Tool of global governance • Objective: mobilize political support for neglected priorities • MDG experience: mobilized support for development, focused on poverty and human well being • Little known about how they work and broader consequences, intended and unintended

3. Indicators as tools of governance • Power of numbers: scientific certitude, concretenes • Governance effects: • Creates incentives for policy change by setting standards for monitoring, reward and penalty • Knowledge effects: • Simplifies complex concepts – ‘poverty’ to every child in school • Reifies intangible phenomena – gender equality to disparities in school enrollment • Abstracts contextually specific phenomena – universally applicable one size fits all goal for all countries

4. Power of Numbers: A Critical Review of MDG Targets for Human Development and Human Rights • An independent research initiative • Objective: empirical study of consequences of MDG targets on policy change and idea change • 11 Case studies, each focussed on a goal/target, examined: • Normative origins • Empirical effects on policy priorities • Normative effects on discourses and narratives • Choice of indicators used and their incentive effects • Alternative indicators that could have been used.

5. Findings • Intended consequences: mobilizing support – not all goals/targets are the same. Spectacular successes (HIV/AIDS) to ambiguous effects (water, sanitation, maternal mortality, child survival, education) to ‘poor cousins’ (employment, food, partnership)

6. Findings – cont’d • Unintended consequences: Policy effects • diverting attention from important objectives and challenges, redefining agendas • Silo effects • Perverse incentives • Knowledge effects • Reductionism and redefinition of objectives • From transformative social change and empowerment to meeting basic needs

7. Findings – cont’d • Political dynamics • disruption in momentum of 1990s conferences • AIDS activism makes use of MDGs • Shifting actors and alliances

8. Conclusions: power of numbers • MDGs introduced as monitoring benchmarks, and tramsformed into an agenda, a consensus framework • What are the policy objectives of global goals? • Mobilize attention by communicating urgent priorities • Benchmarks for monitoring progress in implementing social goals • Not to be confused as a development agenda or strategy • An agenda needs to go beyond goals

9. Implications for post 2015 agenda and Sustainable Development Goals Strengths as weaknesses: • Simple • Measurable • Concrete and achievable