In 2000, the United Nations laid out an ambitious global development agenda known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which sought to resolve some of the most pressing international challenges of our time: eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality, improving maternal health, reducing child morality and promoting environmental sustainability.
While the world has made progress on many of these objectives over the past 15 years, the deadline for developing the new set of global development goals is quickly approaching. The current goals will expire on December 31, 2015 and a new set of principles will replace them. The question of what these principles will look like is explored in detail in the latest Economic Reform Feature Service article Shaping the New Development Agenda.
Author James Michel argues that the post-2015 agenda will need to address an increasing number of complex issues and reconcile the goals of a diverse group of actors in the development landscape. While the concrete set of goals have yet to be outlined, what is becoming clear is that there has been a shift in thinking related to international development. Michel’s article explores the emerging consensus that the post-2015 goals will be based on advancing “human security, well-being, and dignity” and will incorporate the Busan principles of “developing country ownership, a focus on results, inclusive partnerships, and mutual accountability and transparency.”
Furthermore, the traditional relationship between donor countries and recipient states, characterized by North-South dependency, will be transformed to an active partnership with an emphasis on local ownership and South-South exchange of knowledge, expertise, and trade. The agenda will pay greater attention to “exclusion and inequality, urbanization, demographic challenges and the positive contribution of migrants” among others. The paramount challenge will be to incorporate these diverse concerns in a coherent policy agenda focused on sustained, inclusive growth.
To read more on the topic of the post-2015 development agenda, read the article here.
Teodora Mihaylova is a Research Coordinator at CIPE.
