David Hulme Brooks World Poverty Institute University of Manchester manchester.ac.uk/bwpi

1. Could the Post-2015 Development Agenda Promote Poverty Eradication as an International Social Norm? David Hulme Brooks World Poverty Institute University of Manchester www.manchester.ac.uk/bwpi

2. Introduction • Contemporary policy focus on monitoring MDGs and Post-2015 Development Agenda • Returning to Hulme & Fukuda-Parr (BWPI 96) • Did the MDGs promote the ‘end of poverty’ as a social norm…the moral unacceptability of extreme poverty in an affluent world? • Abolishing slavery, anti-apartheid, rules of war • Norm emergence, cascade and internalization

3. The UN MDGs • 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 ‘Human development meets results-based management in an imperfect world’

4. MDGs Contribution to Poverty Eradication? • MDGs only weakly related to ‘MDGs achievement’ in monitoring exercises-China! • Very difficult to assess – history, other factors, multiple criteria and scales • My judgement – small net contribution but NOT transformational (Millennium Moment) • Good news – aid volumes, UK, EU • Bad news – aid-driven, BWI-PRSPs, US…BRICs

5. The Framing of the MDGs • Framed by aid/development agencies as a planning/managing tool • Sachs and the UN Millennium Project – high modernism: experts solve poverty problem • Neglect of re-shaping public attitudes and mobilising grassroots political support • Two main exceptions to this – Millennium Campaign and GCAP… both flawed ?

6. The Post-2015 Development Agenda • Burst into life 2012 – lots of activity now especially UN HLP Report and SDGs • Different from the MDG process • A relatively clear UN process – ‘rules of the game’ • Key players - aid industry plus sustainability group (Brazil and LA) plus Africa growth group • Content – everything, even governance and inequality) • Sustainability + poverty reduction + growth…presented as win/win (not trade-offs)

7. Post-2015 DA: Who is Missing? I think there are two big omissions • Great/emerging powers – US, China, India. • Not a big issue for them or on the side-lines? 2. Civil society • Grassroots contributions are consultative not engaging or mobilising – UN-guided national consultations; Beyond 2015; Southern Voices; PARTICIPATE

8. Post-2015 DA: the consequences? • Very professional and structured processes: shows ‘the people’ have been consulted and produces polished documents and counter-documents…but NOT public engagement • Danger of repeating the MDG experience. • Producing a complex/technical list for political and professional elites…not a narrative or a norm that actively engages civil society in poor, emerging and rich countries

9. Post-2015 DA: What to do? • A partial conclusion – this is where you all come in with your ideas. How to seize the opportunity of 2015 as a [big?] step forward in the historical evolution of anti-poverty (global justice) rather than a well-staged international compromise for policy elites.

10. Post-2015 DA: What to do? • ASAP– university campuses and student social media across the world on Oct 17 2014? • CSOs/NGOs/trade unions – could they engage or too professional/dis-embedded/self-serving? • Faiths – central for anti-slavery and end of apartheid…cross-faith action? • Celebrities – wrong messengers or useful for key events (like Geldof and Band Aid 1985 in UK)? • Change the message – focus on global and national inequality. A message for all countries (US, China, India, UK etc) not ‘us’ and ‘them’?

11. Conclusion • My conclusion is the easy part – it looks likely that, unless something impacts the Post-2015 Development Agenda process, we shall get a technically improved set of global goals that does not engage the public nor contribute much to the creation of an international social norm to end poverty…great rhetoric but little pressure for action or accountability • We can debate this conclusion but most of all I would like to debate with you about - ‘what to do – how to make ending poverty an international social norm for an affluent world’

12. Readings 1 • R Wilkinson and D Hulme (2012) The Millennium Development Goals and Beyond: Global Development after 2015, London, Routledge • D Hulme (2010) Global Poverty: How Global Governance is Failing the Poor, (pp.246). London and New York, Routledge • A Greig, D Hulme and M Turner (2007) Challenging Global Inequality: the Theory and Practice of Development in the Twenty-First Century, (pp296). London, Palgrave (with A. Greig and M. Turner)

13. Readings 2 • D Hulme (2009), ‘Global Poverty Reduction and the Millennium Development Goals: A Short History of the World's Biggest Promise,’ Brooks World Poverty Institute Working Paper 100, University of Manchester • S Fukuda-Parr and D Hulme (2011) ‘International norm dynamics and the “end of poverty”: understanding the Millennium Development Goals’, Global Governance 17(1), pp.17-36 (download as BWPI Working Paper 96)