By Ramesh Singh

Rather than debating the inadequacies of the MDGs, non-governmental organisations should use the space to bring about people-centred development, says Ramesh Singh, Chief Executive of ActionAid

There have been as much hype and celebrations about the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as there have been criticisms.

The fact that we have a full set of goals that has been agreed to by the entire world (leaders of 189 countries) shows an unprecedented level of commitment towards reducing poverty and suffering. The MDGs provide an opportunity for all of us to pool our resources and energy towards one set of shared goals.

This has become a ‘‘mantra’’ for all donors providing development assistance. The MDGs provide us with the benchmark and tool with which to hold our own governments in the South accountable.

Above all, the MDGs, with their simple and quantitative targets, have caught the public imagination and have provided a rallying point for everyone. Around the world, people are rising to the call for action to fulfil the goals.

Critics, however, refer to the MDGs as the ‘‘Minimum Development Goals’’ due to their limited and minimalist targets.

Women’s rights activists and feminists have criticised them for being regressive by failing to include and uphold the numerous ambitious gender equality and women’s rights commitment that were made in the 1990s, such as those made at the Women’s Conference in Beijing and the Population Conference in Cairo.

Critics argue that the targets are quantitative and do not take into account the qualitative aspects of development or the processes of development. There is even a growing concern that such quantitative targets push governments to supply quick, short-term fixes to claim a fragile and unsustainable attainment of the MDGs.

Having just passed the eye catching date of 07-07-07, which marks the mid-point to the deadline to accomplish the MDGs throughout the world, two things are clear.

First, at the current rate of progress, many developing countries are unlikely to achieve the MDGs in time due to their lack of political will or funds. Various estimates put the foreign aid required to achieve the MDGs at around 100 billion dollars per year, which is almost twice the current level of aid provided.

Rich country donors are nowhere near to meeting their commitment to doubling their levels of aid by 2010, as agreed at the 2005 Group of Eight meeting, let alone the 0.7 percent of their gross national income in aid as was agreed over 40 years ago.

Failure to reform global systems and structures that perpetuate poverty is another major factor hindering progress on the MDGs. Perhaps the most shocking example of this is the grossly unfair and distorted international trading system.

Trade-distorting subsidies and the protection of agriculture in rich countries alone continue to cost developing countries an estimated 24 billion dollars per year in lost income.

The World Bank and International Monetary Fund, whose boards are still almost entirely controlled by rich countries, continue to impose controversial neo-liberal policy conditions that severely limit developing countries’ options to find their own paths to growth with equity.

Furthermore, whether or not the MDGs are achieved, they should be assessed and reported on a country by country basis rather than on a regional and global basis, which disguises lack of progress in certain countries.

The progress in reducing the number of people living in poverty in China and India, which would have happened with or without the commitments to the MDGs, should also not be allowed to mask the lack of progress in most of the countries in Africa and Asia.

Even more importantly, the assessment and reporting of the MDGs should be more robust and honest. For instance, the UN’s recent 2007 MDG Report does not recognise that while MDG one sets the target to halve worldwide hunger by 2015, the number of hungry and undernourished people worldwide has in fact increased. Recent estimates put the number at a staggering 854 million people.

Despite their limitations, the MDGs provide a rare convergence and currency for discourse and accountability. To stay accountable to the commitment of reducing and eradicating poverty and suffering, it is essential that we engage with the MDGs tactically and critically.

It is far too late to disengage from them or to expect their abolition. Not only will this give space for complacency, but it will also give leaders and governments more excuses for their lack of progress, particularly when they recognise that the chances of achieving the goals in the committed period are becoming increasingly unlikely.

Our engagement should in fact extend to the broader Millennium Declaration, of which the MDGs and its quantitative targets are only a part of. The declaration, which was agreed to and signed by the heads of states and governments of 189 countries in 2000, committing the signatories to values and principles such as human rights, dignity, equality, freedom, respecting nature, solidarity, democracy, peace, security and disarmament.

The focus on the quantitative targets has unfortunately overshadowed these more fundamental aspects of holistic development. Read without the declaration, the goals are neutral to politics, methods and means, which can attract popularity as practically anyone--even those who are creating or perpetuating poverty--can subscribe to them without promoting the changes needed.

Let us again take the example of MDG one, which may be achievable with food aid and supplementary feeding campaigns. However, such achievements are likely to disappear when supply dries up or is withdrawn. A more permanent victory over hunger requires a fundamental structural change.

This starts with enshrining the right to food in national constitutions together with the means of enforcement and rights of redress, thus enabling citizens to claim and enjoy these rights in a world where many states and constitutions do not even grant the right to food as a basic necessity to their citizens.

In practice, this would also force governments and international institutions to make household food security an overriding consideration, ahead of goals such as boosting export agriculture or developing the mining sector. These may be desirable in theory but are often pursued in ways that spread poverty and hunger.

At the international level, we do not have legally binding mechanisms or UN protocols and covenants for our economic, social and cultural rights, as we do for civil and political rights.

The current process of developing an Optional Protocol for the International Covenant for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR)--a UN-based legally binding mechanism that requires countries to report on rights to food, education and livelihoods--provides legitimate space to formally monitor and demand accountability.

A robust Optional Protocol will provide enormous leverage in our fight to eradicate poverty, exclusion and suffering. The irony, however, is that many, if not all, of the governments in the South and the North who have signed the Millennium Declaration and are at the forefront of promoting the MDGs, are in fact working hard to water down the Optional Protocol.

Similarly, many ‘‘development’’ NGOs who champion the MDGs are not aware of, or are uninterested in, the Optional Protocol process. The human rights NGOs, however, are fully engaged with it.

Those who seek sustainable achievements of the MDGs must work to establish an Optional Protocol containing a ‘‘communication’’ and ‘‘enquiry’’ procedure, available to victims of violations of any substantive right enshrined in the ICESCR.

The coverage of the protocol should be at all levels of state obligations and should include all components of a right--not simply ‘‘core’’ or ‘‘minimum rights’’--and individuals, groups and organisations should all have standing in terms of the Optional Protocol.

This is an example--and an important one--of how we must engage with the Millennium Declaration as a whole, and why we must engage with the structural and sustainability aspects of attaining the MDGs, rather than undertake quick-fix projects and delivery of services.

It is critical that we maintain the momentum we have gained in capturing the public imagination with the Declaration across the globe, particularly in 2005 through various campaigns and calls such as ‘‘Make Poverty History’’ and the ‘‘Global Call to Action against Poverty’’. The relative simplicity of MDGs has connected well with citizens in both the rich countries and the poorer countries.

The idea of holding politicians, bureaucrats and governments accountable to their promises and commitments seem to have generated public enthusiasm. The really significant gain has been that we have brought the discourse about MDGs closer to home.

We have connected with our own citizens and governments in the South as well as citizens of the North and we have popularised the international causes of poverty such as aid, trade and debt.

The platform and coalitions built together and the momentum and methods of holding governments accountable are needed, whether the MDGs are achieved or not by 2015. We must build on the gains and not allow them to be squandered by the competing and territorial non-governmental organisation/international non-governmental organisation mindset.

Rather than spending so much of our energy on discussing the inadequacies of the MDGs, we would be better placed to develop an alternative narrative for development that goes beyond the MDGs and the Millennium Declaration.

Much has happened since 2000 when the MDGs and the declaration were signed: terrorism, war, market failures, immigration, climate change (read: climate injustice) and the strong realisation that the dominant neo-liberal paradigm and models are inadequate and have failed.

We should not be relying on the very narrative and system which were responsible for creating and perpetuating injustices, poverty, exclusion and inequality in the first place.

We need a new narrative on development and new institutions that have human dignity, rights, security, ecological justice and inter-generational accountability at their core and bring people and the planet to the centre of development. We cannot wait until 2015 to see how we fare with the MDGs. We need to know this now.