If you think you’d like to help out, I’d love to hear from you. You could summarise a book or research a topic. No specialist knowledge needed – that’s the point!

Email me at africa @ brasstacks.org.uk if you can lend a hand. Or just sit tight – I’ll get back to it soon, I promise.

<numbers>

To calculate the aid needed to achieve the goals, of course, breaks down into two calculations: the total cost of the project, minus the level of extra spending poor countries can afford to provide themselves. The report recommends a detailed assessment process for each country to calculate its needs and ability to spend, so a hard-and-fast number wouldn’t be available until that process was complete. However, to get a sense of it, the Project worked with local organisations to come up with “needs assessments” for five countries including, most usefully for our purposes, Ghana. The basic costs for all low-income countries studied were similar, although the balance of different spending priorities differs. Here’s a detailed look at Ghana’s plan. (p56)

You can click for a larger view. As you can see, education and health are the main investment priorities, closely followed by energy and transport infrastructure. In terms of funding, the level of aid required (bottom row) increases consistently up to 2015. Note, however, that the level of funding from Ghanaian households and the government also increases. In fact, the report estimates governments will be able to spend 4% more of GDP – that’s a considerable increase in government budgets – on investments to meet the goals by 2015. This would be met by new taxes and re-directing current low-priority spending. So this isn’t a free lunch.

What do these calculations translate into at global level?

The report – which was published in early 2005 – estimates that financing every low-income country to meet the MDG’s would cost $73 billion in 2006, with annual spending rising to $135 billion by 2015. However, there are a host of other costs: $10 billion to support middle-income countries like Brazil and India, spending on staffing and running aid agencies, debt relief, etc. In total, the cost of meeting the MDG’s everywhere is for $121 billion in 2006, with annual payments rising to $189 billion in 2015. The table below shows the costs laid out.

So that’s the amount of aid needed, right? Well, not quite. Some existing aid can be “reprogrammed” to meet the MDG’s, which takes a bit off the figure; but equally, some existing aid needs to be maintained that isn’t strictly goal-related. What’s more, to help all low-income countries to meet the goals won’t be possible; governments that don’t show the necessary planning, and commitment to democracy and human rights, won’t be eligible for help.

With these adjustments, we get a final figure of $135 billion in 2006, with annual spending rising to $195 billion in 2015. As the table below shows, this is substantially more than the current levels promised when the report was published. (p57)

So what does this work out as, in real money? Well, it’s between 0.44 and 0.54% of rich countries’ GNP. So this is still short of the 0.7% of GNP we’ve been promising for aid for around thirty years. To put it another way, it’s around double the current level of aid. This roughly chimes with the report of the Commission for Africa, who proposed providing another £25 billion (around $50 billion) of extra aid now and more after 2010.

</numbers>

Of course, this doesn’t mean donors don’t have to reach 0.7%. The table above doesn’t include many things currently receiving major aid, such as spending in countries of geopolitical importance, like Afghanistan and Iraq. To accommodate that spending on top of the MDG spending would probably need aid of 0.7% rich-country GDP by 2015.

Since the 0.7% target was agreed in 1970, it has been reaffirmed several times, most recently in 2003. But so far, only five countries –Denmark, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway and Sweden – have reached the target. Several other countries, including Britain, have timetables to meet it by 2015. But the US, which because of its vast economy would account for almost half of the total extra aid needed, is currently at less than 0.2%. The report endorses Gordon Brown’s plan for an International Finance Facility to front-load aid by issuing bonds based on donor commitments. In other words, bonds are sold on the market that give the buyer the right to receive future aid, and the money raised can be given right away to poor countries.

The benefits of meeting the goals

Is it worth it? The report certainly thinks so. Meeting the goals means a host of changes of great benefit to the world’s poorest people:

• 300 million more people lifted out of poverty between now and 2015 than on current trends; In Africa, 150 million people lifted out of poverty, as opposed to an increase of 75 million in the number of extremely poor people under current trends
• 230 million fewer people undernourished than on current trends; in Africa, 75 million fewer; as opposed to 25 million more on current trends
• 3.4 million fewer children dying each year, the benefits seen almost entirely in Africa

HIV infections, deaths in pregnancy and childbirth, slums, and poor sanitation would all be reduced. Plus, the report notes, millions of people, particularly women and girls, would have increased rights and opportunities, and the environment would be better protected. (p60-62)

What’s more, the goals are a step on the way to eliminating extreme poverty altogether. If countries maintain 0.7% GNP aid after 2015, the report argues, extreme poverty can be “substantially eliminated” by 2025. Here the report is unsurprisingly in agreement with the Project’s director, Jeffrey Sachs. (p60)

In addition, the report argues, there are security benefits to achieving the goals. Poverty is linked to state failure, conflict, excess migration and other causes of instability. And, the report argues, poor countries’ faith in the international system – already impaired by previous broken promises on aid – will be lost entirely if the goals aren’t supported. “If we do not act now,” it says portentously, “the world will live without goals.” (p64)

So that brings to an end our long trawl through the poverty proposals of Jeffrey Sachs and the UN Millennium Project. I’ll prepare a quick one-post summary of the key points for reference. Then, we’ll look at some of the critics of Sachs’ proposals, and what it is they dislike.

Page numbers come from the Overview Report. You can also see the full 300+ page version, ten key recommendations, or the reports of the individual task forces.

Oh dear. Indeed, for all the celebrations that met 2005’s historic aid pledges by the G8 at Gleneagles, Scotland, the truth is that a serious bid to meet the goals has not yet begun. The extra aid promised has yet to materialise. It seems likely, therefore, that the MDG’s won’t be met everywhere by the agreed deadline, 2015.

And yet, the goals remain the most comprehensive and internationally supported development framework ever agreed (though they certainly have their critics). So even if 2015 is unachievable, aiming for 2017 seems better than giving up. So let’s pretend that, a little behind schedule, the world is now eager and ready to fund and support the UNMP’s recommendations. Where do we start?

1. Every developing country that wants to be eligible for support should prepare an MDG-focussed poverty reduction strategy, a plan to achieve the goals complete with precise costings and measurements of the aid required.
2. Fast-track countries, that are most suitable to receive support, should be identified (more on this below).
3. International agencies should immediately begin working with poor countries to train thousands of teachers, doctors, planning professionals, engineers, and “village specialists” in health, agriculture, forestry, road maintenance and other basic skills. This is to ensure that once infrastructure projects such as new schools and hospitals begin, they aren’t messed up by lack of staff, as has often been the case in the past.
4. The “quick wins“, cheap interventions proven to be effective, should be implemented in all as widely as possible. It would take just two years, the report argues, to distribute anti-malaria bed nets to all at-risk African children.
5. Middle-income countries like China and South Africa, while they have their own poverty issues, should also be invited to join the coalition working towards the goals for poor countries. While their ability to contribute financially may be limited, they can offer expertise, training and certain key cheap materials – for example, China produces artemisinin, a key ingredient of anti-malaria medicine. (p50-55)

But for many rich-country observers, point 2 is the key obstacle. With so many poor countries, with widely varying standards of government, and different needs, how can we identify those best suited to receive extensive support straight away?

Fortunately, the report notes, someone has beaten us to it. In fact, five separate systems have recently assessed poor countries’ governance and economic policies according to fairly strict standards. They are:

• The Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative, the major debt relief system launched in the late 1990s;
• The US’ Millennium Challenge Account, an aid initiative launched by the Bush administration;
• The African Peer Review Mechanism, in which African countries submit their policies and governance to review by other African countries;
• The poverty reduction strategy process itself. Although a true process for assessing MDG-focussed poverty plans is yet to be put in place, countries’ existing PRSP’s are assessed by the World Bank and IMF, and several have recently been praised for their quality and comprehensiveness.
• and a recent World Bank study identified 18 countries that have good policies and a history of using aid well, and development needs that could see them absorb another $30 billion in aid. (p51-52)

Of these systems, the Millennium Challenge has some of the highest standards , with just 19 of Africa’s 54 countries having so far qualified, including Ghana, Mozambique and Niger. HIPC has been similarly strict, with 19 African countries having completed the process of qualification and a further eight having begun the process. All in all, the report argues, reviews of these assessment mechanisms would bring up a list of “at least a dozen” countries eligible for immediate fast-track support, with Senegal and Tanzania likely to be included. (p50)

So, by identifying these countries and getting immediately started with investment and training, and by encouraging poor countries to prepare detailed plans for meeting the MDG’s, it’s still possible, the report argues, to get the process off to a flying start.

Finally, next time, we’ll remind ourselves of the argument for taking the steps necessary to meet the goals.

 Page numbers come from the Overview Report. You can also see the full 300+ page version, ten key recommendations, or the reports of the individual task forces.

The ONE campaign, the modern US incarnation of the Make Poverty History / Global Call to Action on Poverty campaign of 2005, has put together a handy comparison of the presidential candidates’ positions on key development issues. Of the major candidates, as a rule, Hillary Clinton’s are the most detailed and John McCain’s vaguest, with the similarities between Barack Obama and Clinton outweighing the differences.

What on earth does this mean? Well, “public goods” are goods which can’t be limited to one person. Clean air is a public good, as are roads. Because they can’t be controlled in that way, they can’t be sold for profit, which is why they tend to be looked after by governments out of tax money. But what about public goods that cross country boundaries? The UNMP argues we need to look again at our strategies for investing in and protecting those. (p47-8)

Regional public goods

Take for example regional infrastructure. For many land-locked African countries, the only access for goods to ports for export comes through other countries. If a country invests in improving its roads, but the countries lying between them and the port don’t make matching investments, little is gained. For maximum effectiveness, transport projects need to be co-ordinated between countries.

Perhaps most seriously, environmental issues tend to ignore country boundaries. (This is especially true in Africa, where country boundaries stem from age-old colonial decisions and bear little resemblance to natural barriers such as rivers and the edges of forests or deserts.) One country’s over-farming could lead to “desertification” of land, for example, which could easily spread to neighbouring countries. Also, conflicts in one country can easily spread to surrounding countries, or destabilise them through massive refugee flows. (The Second Congo War, which cost around 4 million lives in the late 1990s, was started largely by disruption from the Rwandan genocide of 1994.)

To better tackle all these issues at a regional level, the report calls for regional co-ordination to be built into country strategies to achieve the MDGs. Poverty reduction plans should include plans for regional co-operation in four areas: transport, water and energy infrastructure; environment; economic policy harmonisation; and political dialogue and transparency along the model of the African Peer Review Mechanism, where African countries share submit their governance for review by neighbours.

In addition, the report calls for increased funding by rich countries for regional organisations. Africa has a range of these, including the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

But what about global public goods? The report focuses on two: global scientific knowledge, and the environment.

Global science

Scientific advancements in fighting disease, generating energy, agriculture and so on benefit all of humanity and can massively help the development of poor countries. (For example, scientific research into improvements in agricultural production – creating hybrid, sturdier breeds of rice – brought about the “Green Revolution” that has saved millions from starvation in Asia and kickstarted the region’s economic growth.) But such advancements require vast expenditure on research, usually funded by governments (although the Green Revolution research was in fact mostly funded by nonprofits, the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations). In practice, this means the vast majority of basic scientific research is funded by rich country governments, and naturally largely focuses on rich-country problems. For example, the WHO believes $4 billion a year is needed to combat malaria; the current funding is around $300 million. (full report, p229)

Now, the report argues, a two-pronged approach must remedy this. First, rich countries should devote more attention to poor-country problems, like sexual and maternal health, when funding scientific research. $7 billion of extra funding each year should be put forward by rich countries to research agriculture, energy, and climate change. At the same time, rich countries should support scientific research in poor countries by increasing funding for universities. (overview report, p49)

The global environment

While issues like desertification are regional, climate change is global. It stands to worsen the situation of poor countries through increasing droughts, floods, and tropical diseases. And yet, the primary responsibility for solving it must lie with the rich and middle-income countries that have largely created it. The report calls for rich countries to take immediate steps to stabilise and reduce carbon emmissions, and develop carbon “sinks” such as increased forest space to help stabilise the level of carbon in the atmosphere (although the report stops short of detailed proposals, which would probably fill at least another 400-page report).

…

The report’s proposals in this section are fairly uncontroversial, but nevertheless significant. I’d like to have seen more robust proposals for regional cooperation, as African governments in particular are notoriously bad at it. While increased funding for regional organisations can work when the will is there, too often it’s lacking, leaving some countries punished for others’ short-sightedness.

We’ve now looked over most of the UNMP’s shopping-list of investments and changes needed to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. But this is a whopping ten-year plan. How to get started? Next time we’ll look quickly at the report’s scheme to put the world on the right path.

Unless otherwise indicated, page numbers come from the Overview Report. You can also see the full 300+ page version, ten key recommendations, or the reports of the individual task forces.

It’s certainly true that international trade has worked well for Asia. China and India have seen millions lifted out of poverty since they opened up their economies in the late 1970s and 1990s respectively. But the UN Millennium Project argue, in their 2004 report on strategies to meet the Millennium Development Goals, that the idea that trade and aid are somehow opposed is a myth, and “the slogan ‘trade, not aid’ is misguided.” (p46)

Instead, the report argues, trade reforms go alongside investment and social programs, funded by aid, in helping poor countries meet the Goals. We’ve already looked at the report’s investment plans, so now let’s see its recommendations for reforming the way international trade is carried out.

The report makes explicit its belief that, in the long term, free trade is in everyone’s best interest. It suggests the world adopt a “conveniently distant” target – perhaps 2025 – for the total removal of barriers to trade in goods, and a substantial reduction in barriers to trade in services (such as banking services). This puts the report somewhat at odds with the Commission for Africa, whose own report emphasised poor countries’ right to protect their economies.

This is a long-term framework, though. More immediately, the report calls for several changes:

Abolish agricultural subsidies. You’ve probably heard of schemes like the Common Agricultural Policy in the EU, which heavily subsidise farmers in order to support their livelihoods and the countryside. As well as being extremely expensive, these schemes harm poor countries by making exports from rich countries cheaper for many Africans than goods grown at home! As well as ending such subsides, the report calls on rich countries generally to reduce barriers to agricultural trade, and particularly to end specific taxes on imports of certain goods, such as cotton, which are primarily made by developing countries. (p46)
Manufactured goods made in poor countries, such as clothes, don’t generally have to compete with subsidised goods from rich countries. However when exported to rich countries, they often face crippling import tarrifs that make them too expensive to succeed. Because rich countries have agreed various free-trade initiatives through groupings like the EU, many place higher tarrifs on goods from poor countries than on goods from other rich countries. And the barriers developing countries put up are also a problem. Although they’re designed to prevent goods flowing in from rich countries, they also act against trade between poor countries – preventing, for example, trade between neighbouring African states. Such trade could not only help those economies grow, but may help reduce conflict between African states. Therefore, the report calls for a quick reduction to zero of tarriffs on imports of nonagricultural goods. However, the report does give developing countries more time to adjust, proposing a deadline of 2025 for the removal of their barriers, against 2015 for rich countries. (p46-7)

Free trade in services has been a controversial idea, with many arguing that poor countries could be forced to sell off their remaining public services and to remove regulations on things like banking to fulfil the requirements of the World Trade Organisation’s GATS initiative. The report suggests a trade – that developing countries should lessen their opposition to allowing in foreign services, in exchange for rich countries loosening their restrictions on temporary labour, which is also part of GATS. The idea is that the gains to poor countries from remittances from workers abroad – which currently total $300 billion a year – outweigh the risks of liberalising services a little. It’s one of the report’s most striking recommendations. The Africa Commission, too, however, broadly endorses GATS for poor countries and says further liberalisation of temporary labour could benefit Africa to the tune of $14 billion a year. (p47)

Of course, there are already some systems in place in the international trade system to make allowances for poor countries. They’re known as “special and differential treatment“, and allows exemptions and delays to the implementation of free-trade agreements for countries meeting certain requirements. The report calls for this measure to be expanded, and crucially, for the exemptions offered to usually be longer, to give poor countries time to adjust. (p47)

In addition, the report notes, much of the focus of aid-funded investment should be to improve the competitiveness of poor countries’ exports. Investment in transport infrastructure such as roads, for example, can slash the costs of taking goods to market, letting farmers sell them cheaper and still make more money. At the same time, however, efforts to make poor countries’ exports more competitive (i.e., cheaper) shouldn’t be made at the expense of the environment, or of labour protections like minimum standards for working conditions. (p47)

Trade is a highly complex issue, and the report’s recommendations have to be put in the context of the wider discussion at the time it was written. The immediate context was the Doha Round of WTO negotiations, which was an attempt to agree international trade rules. Despite being billed as a “development round” that would put poor countries first, the deal ultimately fell apart under opposition from many developing countries, largely over the rich countries’ refusal to reduce agricultural subsidies. Some pundits said the Round’s collapse was a tragedy for poor countries, while others said that the likely deal would have made matters worse. The report’s general support for Doha suggests they are in the first category. Later, we’ll look at the trade conversation in more detail and see how these proposals differ from other sets of recommendations. The key things to remember however, are that the report explicitly supports free trade as part of the solution to meeting the MDGs, and calls on both rich and poor countries to take steps to liberalise trade; but it asks for more time for developing countries to make the necessary adjustments.

Having discussed both trade and aid, you’d think the report had covered the changes to the international system needed to meet the Goals. Well, not quite. Next time, we’ll look quickly at its recommendations regarding “regional and global public goods.”

Page numbers come from the Overview Report. You can also see the full 300+ page version, ten key recommendations, or the reports of the individual task forces.

A key area of controversy is aid. Critics of Sachs argue that aid is often wasted, and even can make matters worse for poor countries. Such critics point to studies which suggest that there’s no clear relationship between the levels of aid a country receives and its rate of economic growth. But the problem with these studies, the report argues, is that they look at total aid levels, including things like emergency aid which can’t legitimately be expected to generate growth. Indeed, because this sort of aid is typically given at time of crisis, you could look at the figures and falsely conclude that it is causing, not alleviating, the problems.

The key, the report argues, is to measure the effectiveness of that aid which is intended to generate growth – direct financial support to investments in infrastructure and services. According to a 2004 study¹, such aid does contribute significantly to economic growth, if combined with well-intentioned and reasonably effective governance. (p41)

At present, however, the report acknowledges that the development systems of rich countries – particularly aid – are not working as they should. “Low-quality” aid, the report states, “has fostered the serious misconception that aid does not work.” (p40)

The report outlines 10 changes donors need to make to make aid, and their general part in the development process, work better.

1. The MDGs aren’t at the centre of aid processes. The IMF, World Bank, and donor countries “have not encouraged the countries to take the Millennium Development Goals seriously as operational objectives.” Some countries have devised MDG-focussed plans but have been denied the funding to implement them (Jeffrey Sachs gives the example of Ghana). Others have been advised not to even bother. Instead, rich countries should affirm the goals as the centrepiece of development – “the fulcrum of policy,” as the report put it earlier – and fund them accordingly.
2. Strategies and needs aren’t assessed at country-by-country level. There’s no established assessment framework that can separate corrupt governments from deserving ones, or precisely calculate the needs of each country. Donors need to carefully assess each country separately, using common criteria SACHS LINK>
3. Short-term focus. Development is a long-term process, and meeting the Goals is a ten-year project. But PRSPs often last just three years, and aid is often revised annually. Instead, plans should be made within a ten-year framework, and aid should be offered for the whole 3-5 year life of a PRSP.
4. Technical support isn’t adequate. The numerous specific expert organisations within the international development community – the World Health Organisation, WHO etc – tend to limit their involvement in poor countries to small pilot projects. Instead, they should be encouraged to provide help to governments in developing and implementing massive scale-up plans.
5. Agencies aren’t coordinating their support. The various agencies compete for donor support, and the UN agencies in particular have poor relations with the World Bank IMF. Instead, the UN Development Group, and its country teams based in each location, should co-ordinate the activity of all multilateral agencies within an agreed funding framework and in support of an agreed plan to meet the goals in each country.
6. There isn’t enough money. Neither aid nor debt relief is currently designed to help countries meet the goals. Aid is often not provided for education, training or salaries, some of the vital elements of building up public services. And promised increases in aid to meet the goals aren’t happening quickly enough (this was written before the 2005 Gleneagles commitments, which – if fulfilled – will go a long way to addressing this). The MDGs should be the basis for future aid levels.
7. Debt relief, too, ignores the goals. Measurements for debt relief are based around enabling countries to meet largely arbitrary economic indicators, and not on freeing up resources to meet the goals. Instead, “sustainable” debt should be considered as a level of debt compatible with meeting the Goals.
8. Aid delivery is poor quality. Aid is:
   • unpredictable;
   • limited to emergency and technical help, not to long-term investmetns;
   • tied to contracts with donors, or to donors’ pet priorities instead of recipients’ plans;
   • not evaluated for effectiveness;
   • often given to poorly-governed countries for political reasons.

   Instead, aid should be focussed on well-intentioned but weak governments, and take the form of general budget support to help them meet their PRSPs.

9. MDG priorities are being ignored. Issues such as regional integration, the environment, gender equality, sexual health, roads, electricity… and several more, are often overlooked by donor’s development priorities. All these should receive more attention, within the context of comprehensive development plans.
10. Donors’ priorities are incoherent. In terms of both their aid and trading policies, donors often give with one hand and take with the other, for example supporting agriculture exports with aid and then discouraging them with tariffs. Instead, trade policy, as well as aid, should be aligned with the MDGs, and rich countries should adopt the same stringent transparency standards they expect from poor countries. (p39-46)

Let’s look a little more at point 2 – calculating support according to the needs of different countries. Middle-income countries, primarily in Asia and Latin America, can largely finance meeting the goals themselves, the report notes. For Africa, however, states mostly fall into four categories, each with its own needs:

1. Well-governed countries who are stuck in a “poverty trap”. For these countries, major extra aid is needed, based on an MDG-focussed poverty reduction plan. Aid should be largely without strings.
2. Poor countries with ill-intentioned governments. Countries like Zimbabwe, where the government is part of the problem, there isn’t much of a case for increased aid. Most aid should go to charities, and any given to the government should have strict human rights and economic conditions.
3. Poor countries with well-intentioned but weak governments. For these countries, investments in direct services should be accompanied with investmnt to improve administrative and management capacity. With appropriate support, these countries will “significantly outperform current expectations”
4. Conflict countries, including those falling into, or climbing out of, wars. Here, quick aid is essential (while currently, promises often come quickly, but the actual aid takes much longer). Quick action can help end violence and restore essential services, and the promise of further aid can act as an incentive for maintaining the peace.
5. Geographically vulnerable countries, for example landlocked, island or mountain states, or those very prone to natural disasters. These will require additional responses in transport, communications, or disaster warning, prevention and preparation.
6. Geopolitically important states. Here, the problem is not typically too little action, but too much. Iraq, for example, has received a level of aid and debt relief given its size and economic situation. While aid for such states may be necessary, it shouldn’t be allowed to distract from other countries, nor should it mean lessening requirements of good governance. (p43-44)

By implementing the changes described, and applying the right solutions to the right areas, the report argues, development support from rich countries can be an essential and effective tool to meet the MDGs.

But there’s more to development than aid. What about trade policy? This has been one of the most contentious areas of recent debate about development. Next time, we’ll look at the Project’s ideas in this area.

1. Clemens, Radelet and Bhavnani, “Counting chickens when they hatch: The short term effect of aid on growth,” Center for Global Development, 2004.

Page numbers come from the Overview Report. You can also see the full 300+ page version, ten key recommendations, or the reports of the individual task forces.

Multiple examples, the report notes, show that scaling-up can work:

• Vietnam’s success at beating a 1991 malaria epidemic, where free bednets and treatments nationwide tackled the problem quickly
• Tanzania’s abolition of school fees, and massive investments in new schools and teacher training, increasing primary school enrolment from around 60% to around 90% and achieving gender equality (p34)

But nevertheless, there are real challenges to be faced in scaling-up the MDG interventions: the sheer number of different areas of action; the need to reach millions of people in each country. The report outlines several key factors which are needed to make it work:

• Political commitment at the top level;
• Concrete objectives and plans of work, with specific targets and timetables;
• Delivery systems that are locally appropriate, but also standardised and easily replicable: for example, there are standardised guidelines for Malaria treatment;
• Substantial funding – Tanzania’s education budget had to more than double to achieve the changes above;
• Abolition of user fees;
• Upgrade of infrastructure and increased staffing;
• Co-ordination of government, NGOs and community organisations, donors, and the private sector;
• A role for communities in planning and design of services;
• Close monitoring of progress, with alterations made along the way if needed;
• Long-term, stable, predictable donor finance.

Governance

Crucial to achieving effective scale-up, of course, is effective governance. But the report is eager to point out that the common phrase “poor governance” has two distinct meanings:

1. Corrupt leadership, where government has poor or selfish motives, or is run to the benefit of a particular tribe or ethnic group
2. Weak leadership, where the government’s intentions are good, but its efforts are impaired by lack of resources, technical expertise, or poor management. (p35)

While comment about governance, particularly in Africa, tends to focus on corruption, the report states that “Many of the world’s poorest countries lie closer to this second category.”(p35) In these cases, investment can also be made to improve governance. The following steps can help:

1. Promote the rule of law with adequately trained, staffed government and legal systems;
2. Promote political and social rights through human rights assessments of developing country governments;
3. Accountability, transparency, and participation by all sectors of society, especially the poor;
4. Promote private sector growth through sound economic policies and management
5. Support civil society and NGOs as partners in meeting the MDGs. (p36)

This is all pretty top-level stuff, but it gives a clear steer as to the requirements for an effective scale-up of interventions at national level. But is it enough to convince those critics who believe aid is often wasted? We’ll look at some of the criticisms of the report in a few weeks. Of course, it isn’t just problems within developing countries that are currently slowing progress towards the goals. As we’ve already seen, there are also issues with rich countries and their relationships – as donors and as trading partners – with developing countries. We’ll look a little at this next time.

Page numbers come from the Overview Report. You can also see the full 300+ page version, ten key recommendations, or the reports of the individual task forces.

Here are some examples:

• abolishing fees for school uniforms
• nitrogen replenishment treatment for agriculture
• free school meals
• breast feeding support with micronutrient supplements
• annual deworming of schoolchildren
• basic health training in villages
• antimalarial bednets
• eliminate health fees for essential services
• increase sexual health
• expanding AIDS, malaria and TB treatment, for example achieving the “3×5” target of getting 3 million people onto AIDS treatment by 2005 (the report came out in late 2004)
• slum upgrading
• establishing off-grid electricity sources for remote areas, including solar
• legislation to ensure property rights for women
• campaigns against violence towards women
• appoint science advisors for presidents and prime ministers, getting women into policy processes, community support for tree-planting.

“The Quick Wins are not the only interventions needed to reach the Goals,” points out the report, but “the ones with very high potential short-term impact that can be immediately implemented.” (p26)

Still, that gives us an idea of the specific kinds of investments the Project envisage – a similar list to those outlined in Sachs’ book, and many also tried out in Sachs’ Millennium Villages. But as we noted with reference to the villages, it’s one thing to make interventions in certain areas, another to “scale up” to making interventions at national and Africa-wide level. What kind of guidance does the Report offer on scaling-up?

Page numbers come from the Overview Report. You can also see the full 300+ page version, ten key recommendations, or the reports of the individual task forces.

Fortunately, the report notes, the development industry already has a system that can be adapted for this purpose: the nattily-named Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper. These are poverty plans which, since the mid-1990s, developing countries have been required to complete to receive support from the World Bank and IMF. The strategies were brought in in response to criticisms that poor countries were being given no say in reforms to their economies designed to reduce poverty; but they also enable donors to assess developing country governments’ commitment to – and capacity for – poverty reduction. Now, the UNMP argues, “MDG-focussed PRSPs” will give poor countries a way of planning massive poverty reduction strategies to meet the MDGs – and give rich countries a clear guide to how much extra aid they need to provide. (p24)

So what do these plans need to cover?

1. The nature and underlying causes of poverty – and how it varies by region, gender, age, and so on. Is poverty in one particular country mostly urban? Rural? Female?
2. Exactly what public investments are needed, from transport to education, to meet the goals. These should not be vague statements, but precise measurements.
3. Both a ten-year framework for achieving the MDGs (remember, the report was published in early 2005, ten years before the goals’ deadline) and a 3-5 year plan for immediate action.
4. A public sector management strategy, ensuring the country’s public sector is up to the task. This should include things like measurement and accountability, human rights, and so on. In addition, it should plan ways to decentralise decision-making for the carrying out of the plan to local level.
5. A private sector strategy focussed on building up business in order to kick-start economic growth and reduce the country’s dependence on aid.
6. While some countries, including most of Africa, will need aid beyond 2015, some can be expected to “graduate” from aid before then. These country’s PRSPs should also include an aid exit strategy for a timed, orderly transition to self-sufficiency.

So when it comes to the actual investments needed, what sort of thing does the report have in mind? It breaks its suggestions down into seven “investment-and-policy clusters”.

Rural development

AIM: increase food production

• achieve a “21st-Century African Green Revolution” by supplying soil nutrient fertilisers and training in better soil management techniques
• invest in rural transport, communications, drinking water and sanitation, irrigation, and energy
• all in an environmentally sustainable way

Urban development (p28)

AIM: upgrade slums, prevent new slums developing, and provide jobs

• Improve tenant’s rights and security of tenure for people who live in slums
• Support poor-people-led efforts to build decent housing
• Strengthen urban planning systems, ensuring poor people’s input, especially women’s
• Expand basic infrastructure to slums
• Reduce air and water pollution
• Establish “special investment zones” to encourage business growth
• Strengthen NGOs and civil society groups and encourage their voice in discussions

Health

AIM: ensure universal access to essential services

• Focus health efforts on district hopitals, with these acting as hubs for local services
• Train more doctors and nurses
• Build hospitals and clinics
• Provide more medicines
• Strengthen management
• Eliminate user fees for essential services
• Train community workers – “barefoot doctors” – to provide simple treatments, educate communities, and involve them in decision making
• Establish systems to monitor and evaluate district service

Education

AIM: ensure universal primary education and expand secondary and higher education

• Build schools and train teachers where there are shortages
• Revise curricula to ensure relevance and eliminate gender bias
• Give parents and communities power to hold schools accountable
• Eliminate primary school fees
• Use special initiatives to reach vulnerable children who aren’t in school
• Recognise civil society organisations as “legitimate partners in debate”
• Meeting the goals will also require “political transformation” to commit to universal education and eliminate favouritism

Gender equality

AIM: invest to overcome gender bias¹

• Collect gender-focussed data for essential services to check extent of problem
• Protect sexual and reproductive rights and provide access to reproductive health services²
• Ensure women have equal legal rights with regard to land tenure etc
• Increase women’s representation in politics
• Protect women from violence

Environment

AIM: invest in improved resource management³

• Integrate environmental strategies into all policies
• Promote regulatory reforms to protect environment
• Introduce environmental monitoring
• Replant forests
• Treat waste water
• Restrict chemical pollution
• Remove subsidies that encourage environmentally risky behaviour

Science

• Create science advisory groups to advise governments
• Expand science and engineering faculties in universities
• Make science curricula more business focussed
• “Promote infrastructure development as a technology learning process”⁴ (p28-31)

However, the report notes, the seven areas are interdependent. No one can be invested in on its own. In each area the different sectors will have different levels of priority, but PRSPs must aim to achieve the goals in all sectors to be effective.

The report outlines a little of what the balance of priorities should be for each region. For sub-Saharan Africa, it argues that the popular belief that governance should be the main focus is wrong. Many parts of the continent, it argues, are well-governed, but stuck in a “poverty trap”. Instead, the primary focus should be on:

• rural and urban productivity;
• major investments in public health to tackle AIDS, TB, malaria, and child and maternal mortality;
• sexual and reproductive health to provide more manageable family sizes;
• building more schools, training more teachers, and providing incentives for girls and vulnerable children to attend school;
• major investment in water management and energy;
• tackling legal and social barriers facing women and girls.

This all still sounds a bit vague, right? In fairness, as the report notes, the precise package of interventions needed will vary widely around the world because of environmental, social, political and cultural factors. In addition, different countries are in different positions now, because of past investment, and so will need a different balance of remedies to meet the goals.

Fortunately however, the report does outline a host of specific interventions – the so-called “quick wins” – which can be done quickly, relatively affordably, across the developing world and will bring rapid gains towards the goals. We’ll take a look at those next time, along with the report’s thoughts on how best to scale up the interventions.

1. Bit vague, dontcha think? The specific MDG goal for gender equality is to eliminate gender disparities in education.
2. Sounds uncontroversial, but this is an allusion to providing both contraception and abortion services, which can be decidedly problematic in some countries. Even now, US aid is blocked to organisations that advise on abortion.
3. Notice how much vaguer these later sections are than those on health and education. A similar problem occurs with the goals themselves – those on poverty, education, health and so on are very precise, latter ones on education and “global partnership” maddeningly vague.
4. I have no idea what this means.

Page numbers come from the Overview Report. You can also see the full 300+ page version, ten key recommendations, or the reports of the individual task forces.