How can we be content with health for half when health for all is possible? The MDGs are too little too late. Let’s face it: The 1978 Alma Ata Declaration could, much more fittingly, be called the “People’s- Millennium-Goals-for-Health”. (Wim De Ceukelaire)
- In all honesty, what the MDGs have done is to infuse neoliberal priorities into development policies using only the ‘language’ of human rights (HR). They have been an attempt to ‘wash-the-face-of-neoliberalism’ without touching the structural causes of poverty in the world. Conversely, the genuine language of rights is powerful; it implies standards of what is unacceptable in society. So, the real goal of the MDGs ought to be more than achieving certain average, arbitrary benchmarks; they ought to pursue greater equity or, better even, they actually ought to pursue greater justice –and one of the best ways we have of ensuring justice is the fulfillment of HR beyond pure lip service. (Yasir Susskind)
- While all MDGs seem plausible in their own right, the priorities were, as said, arbitrarily set. And, at that, they were often prescribed from outside –so much so that they represent a form of dubious ‘actionism’, i.e., pretending to be vehicles-of-real-change. Are they thus just another attempt to achieve good-looking statistics?
- The MDGs cannot be achieved without respect for HR overall and in particular for minority rights. They cannot be achieved without redistributive steps either. (But beware: Redistribution always takes place: just not from the rich to the poor!). I would say that poverty reduction without redistribution is only to be seen as flimsy rhetoric.
- The MDGs can be seen as the-goals-of-the-industrialized-countries-for-the-developing-countries; they are a watered-down version of earlier international goals, now simply rescheduled for later achievement. MDGs mostly refer to the consequences of maldevelopment, but that does not mean that development will be brought about by achieving them. As MDGs consider development a technical problem that should be solved by technical means, they focus on measurable technical indicators. The solutions being offered focus on quick fixes. The whole Millennium Declaration, from which the MDGs are drawn, does not make any reference to the causes of poverty, of HR violations and of hunger. (W. de Ceukelaire)
- In the best of cases, only if the structural causes of poverty in India and China can be overcome can the aim of halving global absolute poverty be achieved by 2015. (This, since over 50% of the world’s poor live in these two countries).
- Otherwise, to achieve the MDGs, economic growth in Africa has to climb-to and stay at 7%/year. Sub-Saharan Africa recorded barely a 4% growth in 2003, i.e., half of the growth needed. But in this continent, too much aid may be the enemy of achieving the MDGs… (for example, there are 600 projects in the social sector alone funded by the EU and its member states in Tanzania). Is anybody keeping track?
- Finally, market liberalization strategies are oblivious to the MDGs. Corporations are not geared to invest in helping achieve them. This, despite the fact that corporations know it takes a minimum of education for people to become addressable consumers (advertising needs to be read!); even then, transnational corporations still ignore the education MDGs. They also ignore the economic and health MDGs (as much as the prevailing practice of self-medication is resulting in huge profits for pharmaceutical houses). Is greed making them short-sighted?
Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City