The Millenium Development Goals
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) published by the UN Secretariat in 2001 represent global governance’s effective framework of development cooperation until 2015.
There is still widespread ignorance about the origin of the MDGs, the identity of those who pull the strings of the process, how the MDGs are funded, the ideological centrality of sexual and reproductive health and gender equality in the framework, the concrete achievements of the MDGs since their launch.
This series of modules provides some factual information on these issues and elements of analytical reflection. We suggest you read the modules in the following order:
1. MDGs, targets and indicators: chart of the 8 goals, their 21 targets and 60 indicators, as they currently stand.
2. MDGs - Introduction and historical process: are the MDGs the product of a genuine and open intergovernmental debate? Do they represent the cultural values and will of peoples in the developing world or those of western “experts” working in international organizations?
3. The dangerous ambivalence of MDGs: common sense coexists with the non-consensual agenda of western secularized minorities in the way the MDG framework is interpreted. Is it possible to disentangle one from the other?
4. MDG 5, target 5b: reproductive health and rights were initially not integrated in the MDGs explicitly. How did target 5b (about achieving, by 2015, universal access to reproductive health) make it into the MDG framework?
5. MDGs and reproductive health - “the final push”: although highly controversial, reproductive health has been, since the 1994 Cairo conference, one of the highest items on the UN political agenda. But the reproductive and sexual health lobby always pushes for “more”.
6. MDGs-conference process - ideological continuum: an ideological continuum connects all MDGs to the UN conference process of the 1990s, in particular to the Cairo (ICPD) and Beijing conferences.
7. MDGs funding mechanisms: who finances what MDG? To what extent can sovereign developing nations freely decide their development priorities?
8. MDGs - Where are we at?: Do the MDGs deliver real development? Does the framework work? What lessons can be drawn from the reality of its achievements?
9. From frameworks to self-determination: “Frameworks”, “targets”, “indicators”, “best practices” forged by far-away experts are largely artificial and have proven they do not work. Governments, nations, persons can and must determine for themselves who they want to be.