The Millennium Development Goals: three proposals

for renewing the vision and reshaping the future

A paper by Kevin Watkins

Executive summary

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) represent

a commitment by the world’s governments to improve
the lives of the world’s poor by 2015. That
commitment calls for deep cuts in poverty, reduced
child mortality, enhanced access to education,
greater gender equity and wider goals. Much has
been achieved. Many countries have registered
strong advances. The MDGs have put poverty on the
political map, created a focal point for aid agencies,
and provided a yardstick for measuring progress.

With the 2015 target date drawing closer there is a

renewed momentum behind the MDGs. Several
governments, civil society groups, and private
companies have issued an MDG ‘Call to Action’ – and
in September, 2008 will convene a high-level summit.
The stakes are high. Many countries are currently off
track for the MDGs. Getting ‘on-track’ will save lives,
free millions of people from the grip of poverty,
extend opportunities for education, and strengthen
the credibility of international cooperation.

This paper argues that a renewed commitment to the

MDG ambition should go hand-in-hand with a renewal
of the targets and goals themselves. It focuses for
illustrative purposes on three areas. The first
concerns social justice. Overall progress towards the
MDGs has often been accompanied by rising

1
inequalities, notably in areas such as child mortality.
Achieving 2015 goals while leaving large sections of
the poor behind is to comply with the letter of the
MDGs while violating their spirit. We set out the case
for equity- related targets that put social justice at
the centre of the MDG agenda.

The second section turns to education. We argue that

the current MDG framework is out of touch with
political reality and the aspirations of people. In
particular, the focus on primary education fails to
address the dynamic synergies linking progress in
this area, and advances in early child development,
secondary education, and adult literacy. The
Education For All (EFA) framework adopted by
governments in 2000 provides a ready template for
MDG renewal. We call also for a strengthened
international commitment to early childhood
schooling because it is one of the most neglected and
most vital foundations for progress.

The battle against poverty will not end on 31

December, 2014. New threats are emerging. None of
these is more potent than global warming. There is
now a clear and present danger that climate change
will first stall and then reverse the human
development gains achieved under the MDGs
Mitigation is one priority. Another is climate change
adaptation in the poorest countries. These are long-
term challenges demanding urgent action and
commitment by rich countries, many of which could
be enshrined in the MDGs,

2
Introduction

Unanimously adopted in 2000 by 147 governments,

the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and
eighteen targets marked a watershed in development
cooperation. The goals define a bold vision for cutting
extreme poverty and advancing human progress in
other areas, including the reduction of child and
maternal deaths, education and access to water and

3
sanitation. As we look towards the 2015 deadline for
achieving the goals, one question looms large. Will
the MDG commitments go down in history as a
defining moment in the fight against poverty? Or will
they be recalled, in the spirit of Samuel Johnson’s
unkind observation on second marriages, as a
triumph of hope over experience?

This is a critical moment for reflection and action on

the MDGs. With around seven years left to the 2015
target date, there has been much stock-taking of
where we are, who is off-track, and what needs to be
done. There is a growing recognition that business-
as-usual will not deliver on the MDG promise for a
large section of humanity. The good news is that,
business-as-usual is not the only option. The MDG
‘Call to Action’ by several governments, faith leaders,
civil society groups and private sector companies
signals a renewed momentum for change. Looking
ahead, there is an opportunity to build that
momentum through a series of major international
meetings, including the EU Council in June, the G8
summit in July, and the UN summit on the MDGs
planned for September 2008. These meetings provide
governments with a chance to renew the MDGs by
strengthening some of the targets and goals, and by
looking beyond 2015 to the great poverty challenges
that will face future generations.

The stakes could hardly be higher. Getting the world

on track for the MDGs is not an abstract philosophical
exercise: it is an endeavour that has the potential to
save the lives of millions of children, enable a large
section of humanity to break out of poverty, create
opportunities for education, and break down gender

4
inequalities. Failure will come with enormous costs
attached. Most immediately, those costs will be
borne by the world’s poorest and most vulnerable
people to whom the MDG promise was made. But
failure will also call into question the structures of
international cooperation, weaken multilateralism,
and reinforce the resentment that will inevitably
accompany a model of globalisation that tolerates
mass poverty in the midst of rising prosperity. As
political leaders grapple with the immediate crises on
the political agenda – the credit-crunch, violent
conflicts, the threat of recession and so on – it is
important that they do not downplay the importance
of the human crisis that the MDGs were established
to resolve. It is important also that they recognise the
fact that the window of opportunity for decisive
action is closing. Putting in place the policies,
mobilising the resources, and building the capacity
needed to deliver results takes time and long-term
political commitment. Waiting until 2014 to act is not
an option for success.

The MDGs are not without their critics. As has been

regularly pointed out, some of the goals are badly
framed. Many commentators also argue that most
targets are ‘unrealistic’ when assessed against
historical precedent. There is some justification for
both views. Not all of the MDG targets were
sufficiently thought through – gender parity in
education by 2005 being a case in point. In other
areas, achieving the MDGs will require a rate of
progress pressing the edges, or going beyond,
precedent.

5
Yet the MDGs are not a utopian fantasy. True, the
targets are ambitious. But had they been set so low
as to be attainable without fundamental change, they
would have been criticised for under-ambition. Some
countries, including many that are making rapid
progress from a low base, may not achieve some
targets. However, it is possible for most countries
that are off-track to get on-track if the necessary
financial and technological resources are lined up
behind credible national strategies. In some areas,
the headline progress report provides grounds for
optimism:

• the number of people living on less than $1 a day

has fallen by around 134 million since 1999.
Poverty incidence is now 18% compared with
29% in 1990 – one of the most rapid poverty
reduction episodes in human history. While sub-
Saharan Africa accounts for a growing share of
world poverty (it is currently around one-third),
sustained economic growth in a large group of
countries – currently around 3% per capita for
the region – has created the potential for a
poverty reduction ‘take-off’;

• the number of children out of school fell from 96

million to 72 million between 1999 and 2005,
with rapid increases in enrolment in sub-Saharan
Africa and South Asia. In sub-Saharan Africa, the
number of out-of school children fell by 11
million. Countries such as Tanzania,
Mozambique, Burkina Faso, Nepal and Yemen
have combined rapid increases in enrolment with
improved gender parity;

6
 • in mid-2006 there were 1.6 million people in
developing countries receiving antiretroviral
treatment, including around 20% of HIV-positive
pregnant women

• around 80 million people a year are gaining

access to clean water and a slightly lower
number to sanitation;

• there are 3.5 million fewer child deaths annually

than in 1990, with some of the world’s poorest
countries – Bangladesh, Nepal and Ethiopia
among them – cutting death rates by 40-50%;
and,

• innovative financing strategies have been used

to mobilise resources in public health. The
International Financing Facility for Immunisation
(IFFIm), Advance Market Commitments for
vaccines have contributed to the expansion of
immunisation coverage, with an additional 500
million children vaccinated against measles
since 2000. On one estimate, IFFM financing
($1bn in 2006) will have saved 5 million child
lives by 2015. Coverage rates for insecticide
treated bed nets have at least tripled since 2000.

To those who maintain that the MDGs represent an

indulgence of over-ambition, it is worth asking two
questions. First, how many commentators in 1999
would have predicted progress on this scale? Second,
what is the ethical basis for urging reduced ambition
in a world that has the financial, technological, and
other resources needed to make a breakthrough? The
flip side to the progress report is the deficit report. It

7
is worth recalling that there are still 10 million child
deaths annually – and that the vast majority of
countries are off-track for the MDG target.
Malnutrition leaves one-quarter of children stunted,
threatening their lives, damaging their brains, and
impairing their education potential. Around 1 billion
people living in extreme poverty. And while public
health initiatives have registered real advances,
fewer than 10% of HIV/AIDS victims have access to
retrovirals; and malaria still claims over 1 million
lives, most of them African children.

Against this backdrop, it might be argued that

insufficient ambition is the real indulgence. Perhaps
the real question to ask is why a world that could do
so much still does so little. Moreover, it is important
to recall that, even if the MDGs are achieved, large
deficits will remain. Even if the MDGs are achieved,
there will still be over 2 billion people lacking access
to basic sanitation and almost 1 million lack access
to clean water. Indeed, the fact that some 2 million
children still die each year from diarrhoea – or, more
accurately, for want of a safe toilet and a glass of
clean water – is a real indictment of our standing as a
human community.

It would clearly be wrong, if not fanciful, to attribute

advances in the war against poverty solely to the
MDGs. By the same token, there is little question that
the MDG targets have made a difference. The targets
have provided a moral compass and a set of
yardsticks for measuring progress. National
governments, multilateral development banks, and
bilateral donors have all scaled-up and strengthened
the monitoring of progress towards the MDGs. More

8
than that, they have placed poverty reduction at the
centre of the international development agenda,
helping to stimulate more rapid expansion of access
to basic health, education and wider goals.

This paper does not provide a comprehensive

assessment of progress towards the MDGs. The
overall picture is well known. Some regions – notably
sub-Saharan Africa – and fragile states are falling
behind on most indicators. Meanwhile, progress on
some of the most important goals – notably child
mortality and nutrition – has been far too slow, even
in countries that have sustained high growth. Less
than one-fifth of the developing world’s population
lives in countries that are on track for achieving the
child mortality target. To put this in perspective, the
gap between target and trend amounts to the
equivalent of around 4.4 million additional deaths in
2015. Here we look beyond the progress report to the
future. We focus on three themes that are critical to
the delivery and renewal of the MDG project.

• Putting social justice and equity at the heart of

the MDG agenda. The MDGs are about more than
hitting numerical targets. They enshrine
principles based on human rights, equity and
social justice. Deep inequalities in life-chances
based on income, gender, location and other
markers for disadvantage violate these
principles. The problem with the MDGs is that
they are largely ‘distribution neutral’. They
describe and encourage governments to report
on average national progress – and averages can
improve while disparities worsen. This is what is
happening in many countries. The upshot is that

9
 countries can be on-track for the MDGs despite
rising inequalities in key indicators such as child
mortality, nutrition and access to basic services.
Of course, not all inequalities are unacceptable,
but there are acceptable limits to inequality.
Most people would accept that large disparities
in the opportunity to survive childhood breach
those limits. The bottom line is that failure to
tackle deep inequalities is a source of social
injustice. But persistent inequalities also act as
a brake on progress towards the MDGs
themselves. We highlight the implications by
reference to the goals on nutrition and child
mortality. In both of these areas, the MDGs could
be supplemented and strengthened by equity
based targets and reporting systems.

• Strengthening and renewing the goals – beyond

primary education. The MDGs emerged out of
process of wide-ranging discussion and
consultation. Given their scope and the
complexity of the issues covered, it would be
extraordinary if their architects had delivered the
perfect product. In practice, experience points to
the need for some goals to be amended and
broadened. We highlight this by reference to
education – an area in which progress is both an
end in itself, and vital to advances in health,
poverty reduction and wider goals. Under MDG 2,
the focus is squarely on universal primary
education and gender equity. These remain
critical indicators for progress. The problem is
that the MDGs for education are too narrow.
They do not cover pre-school, transition to
secondary school, literacy or – critically – the

10
 quality of learning. In each of these areas, the
Education for All framework adopted by
governments in 2000 could enrich and
strengthen the MDGs.

• Looking to the future – climate change and

development. The MDG target date is now just
over one standard political cycle away. It goes
without saying that the struggle against mass
poverty and inequality will not end on December
31, 2015. It is therefore important that
governments look beyond 2015 to the emerging
challenges of the first half of the 21st Century.
Climate change represents the most serious
challenge. We are already witnessing the ‘early
harvest’ of global warming as poor people across
the world attempt to cope with more a more
hostile and less predictable climate. Increased
exposure to droughts, storms, floods and
changing ecological patterns are already slowing
progress towards the MDGs. Beyond 2015, the
danger is that climate change will first slow and
then reverse human development. The
consequences will be felt by future generations,
with the world’s poorest people facing the
earliest and most damaging impacts. Averting
that outcome will require urgent action not just
on mitigation but also climate change
adaptation. This is an area in which some
creative ‘joining-up’ of the MDGs with a post-
2012 multilateral framework is important, with
an early focus on technology transfer, adaptation
strategies, and the innovative use of carbon-
trading to support clean energy development.

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Putting social justice and equity at the heart of the
MDG agenda

The MDGs represent the international community’s

time-bound and quantified targets for addressing
human deprivation in many dimensions, including
income poverty, hunger, child death, education, and
environmental sustainability. Implicit in the MDGs is
a commitment to social justice and greater equity
within an interdependent global society and economy.
That commitment needs to be made explicit.

Overcoming extreme life-chance inequality and

absolute deprivation should be central to the MDGs.
There are at least three reasons for a strengthened
focus on equity. First, most people feel that egregious
disparities in life-chances based on circumstances
over which individuals have no, or limited, control,
violate basic precepts of fairness and social justice.
The idea that the risk of death among children should
be contingent on the socio-economic status of their
parents, the colour of their skin, their gender, or other
inherited markers for disadvantage, is not consistent
with the moral and ethical teaching that underpin
most societies. Second, most societies have ideas
(and legislation) relating to what might be thought of
as a social minimum in areas such as nutrition,
income, housing and education determined by
reference to social norms about inequality. Third, and
beyond these intrinsic considerations, extreme
inequality is an increasingly important barrier to the
attainment of the MDGs themselves. It follows that
policies which are good for advancing equity and
combating extreme inequality are also good for
overall progress towards the MDGs.

12
Enhanced equity does not figure as a central MDG
concern. There are only two MDGs – on basic
education and gender parity – that expressly require
reduced inequality. Progress towards other MDGs is
entirely compatible with deepening inequalities. For
example, cutting absolute income poverty is perfectly
consistent with rising income inequalities within and
between countries, as witnessed by the experience of
countries such as China, Vietnam and India. Similarly,
countries can reduce malnutrition and register falling
child mortality rates, while experiencing increases in
disparity between rich and poor. The relationship
between income poverty and income inequality is a
complex one. High levels of equity at a very low level
of average income and low growth is clearly not
conducive to poverty reduction. In the non-income life
chance domain, equity of opportunity would be seen
by many as an end in itself. And it is these domains
that the MDGs should prioritise for an equity overhaul.

Inequalities in child mortality represent a growing

cause for concern. The 10 million child deaths that
happen each year as a result of poverty and
infectious disease represents a potent reminder of
what is at stake with the MDGs. Child survival is
surely one of the most basic of all human rights. Yet
child survival prospects are powerfully determined by
two factors: where you are born and the wealth of
your parents. As shown in Figure 1, there is a strong
socio-economic gradient for child survival, with death
rates for the poor typically three-to-four times higher
than for the rich. While overall death rates are falling,
they are falling least rapidly for very poor (where
death rates are highest). At the UNESCO Global
Monitoring Report we have compared progress in

13
child mortality reduction by socio-economic group for
twenty-two countries, using Demographic Health
Survey data to compare the situation post-2020 with
the mid-1990s. In thirteen of these cases, the rate of
reduction for the poorest 20% has been below the
average, and in eleven it has been below the rate for
the richest 20%. Thus is a large group of countries –
including Tanzania, Nigeria and Nicaragua - child
mortality is declining more rapidly among the rich
than the poor. From an equity perspective, these
outcomes are hard to justify. From an MDG efficiency
perspective they are counterproductive for an
obvious reason: the poor tend to have more children
and higher death rates.

Outcome inequalities in child death reflect unequal

access to nutrition and basic health services. Across
much of the developing world, the poorest households
facing the gravest health risks have the most limited
access to basic services. There are many dimensions
of inequality. In many countries, the rural-urban divide
is among the deepest social fault-lines, reinforced by
disparities based on gender, language and wealth. A
near-universal double burden experienced by poor
children is that they are more exposed to health risks
as a result of poor nutrition, but are less likely to be
treated when sick with life-threatening illnesses such
as acute respiratory tract infection (ARI) (Figure 2).
Inability to afford treatment, distance from clinics
and the unavailability of trained staff or medicine all
contribute. So do inequalities in service provision. In
Burkina Faso, there is roughly one midwife for every
8,000 people in richer zones, against one for 430,000
people in the poorest zone. In Malawi, 87% of people
live in rural areas, but 96% of doctors are to be found

14
in urban areas. In many countries, gender inequalities
act as another powerful constraint on progress
towards the MDGs, intersecting with rural-urban
differences and wider socio-economic disparities.
Intra-household factors are also important in many
countries. In India, the death rate for girls aged 1-4 is
some 50% higher than for boys, reflecting the
institutionalised gender discrimination that starts at
birth.

Economic growth alone is an insufficient vehicle for

eroding many basic life-chance inequalities. Greater
income at the household level enables families to
spend more on food, clean water, and health care.
But income growth will not remove the barriers to
progress linked to inequality. Empirical evidence
suggests that sustained per capita income growth of
2.5% a year in sub-Saharan Africa would reduce
malnutrition by between 27% and 34%. Achieving the
MDG target of halving malnutrition would require
complementary measures, including targeted income
and food transfers, improved access to responsive
health services, and measures to protect vulnerable
households from events such as drought.

Experience within South Asia underlines the

importance of public policies. It is often forgotten
that South Asia has higher rates of malnutrition than
sub-Saharan Africa, along with high mortality rates.
Economic success is not transforming this picture.
Rapid economic growth in India has

Figure 1 Child mortality gaps between rich and poor

15
 A . E A S T A S IA , P A C IF I C
C a m b o d ia 2 0 0 0
In d o n e s ia 2 0 0 2 /0 3
V ie t n a m 2 0 0 2
P h il i p p in e s 2 0 0 3
B . E U R O P E , C E N T R A L A S IA
Turk e y 1 9 9 8
K y r g y z s ta n 1 9 9 7
A r m e n ia 2 0 0 0
K a z a k h s ta n 1 9 9 9
T u rUk zmb ee nk iiss tt aa nn 21 09 09 06
C . L A T IN A M E R IC A ,
H a it i 2 0 0 0
D o m i n ic a nP Ra re ap gu ub al icy 12 90 90 02
B o l i v ia 2 0 0 3
C o lo m b ia 2 0 0 5
G u a t e m a la 1 9 9 8 / 9 9
P e ru 2 0 0 0
N i c a rBa r ga uz ai l 21 09 09 16
D . M ID D L E E A S T , N O R T H
J orda n 1 9 9 7
M o r o Yc ce om 2e 0n 0 13 9/ 09 47
Egypt 2000
E . S O U T H A S IA
P a k isI n tda i na 11 99 99 08 // 99 19
N epal 2001
B a n g la d e s h 2 0 0 4
F . S U B - S A H A R A N A F R IC A
C had 2004
N ig e r ia 2 0 0 3
E t h io p ia 2 0 0 0
Gabon 2000
N ig e r 1 9 9 8
T a n z aM nai ali 22 00 00 41
Togo 1998
M a li 1 9 9 5 /9 6
M a u r it a n ia 2 0 0 0 / 0 1
G u in e a 1 9 9 9
C e n t r aMl aA df ra icg aa sn cRa er p1 u9 b9 l 7ic
U g a n d a 2 0 0 0 /0 1
20%

C ô t e d ' I v o ir e 1 9 9 4
E r it r e a 1 9 9 5
Poorest

B urk i Fa s o 2 0 0 3
C a m Ke er on oy na 22 00 00 43
C om oros 1 9 9 6
B e n in 2 0 0 1

16
Source: Gwatkin et al., Socio-economic Differences in
S o u t h A f r ic a 1 9 9 8
20%

M o z a m b iq u e 2 0 0 3
Richest

Z i mN ba amb iwb iea 12 90 90 90

Ghana 2003
Z a m b ia 2 0 0 1
M a la w i 2 0 0 0
R wanda 2000
Avg

Senegal 1997
G . A L L C O U N T R IE S
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350
 A .EA S T A S IA , P A C IF IC
In C a m b o d ia 2 0 0 0
for ARI
Pd oh niVl ieipespti nai na e2ms0 022 200 / 000 233
B .EU R O P E , C E N T R A L A S IA
A rT mu rek ne i ay 21 09 09 03
C . L A T IN A M E R IC A ,
G u a t e m a lHa a1 i 9t i 92 80 / 90 90
Countries, 2007

N i c aB r oaP lgei vur iuaa 222 000 000 013

D o m i n i c a n C R o el op mu bb l ii ac 22 00 00 52
D . M ID D L E E A S T , N O R T H
M o r o c cE og y2 p0 t0 23 0/ 00 40
E . S O U T H A S IA
B a n g l aN d ee ps ah l 22 00 00 41
In d ia 1 9 9 8 /9 9
F . S U B - S A H A R A N A F R IC A
C had 2004
RE Mtwhaai ol na pdwi aai 222 000 000 000
N iNg ei g r ei ar 21 09 09 38
B u r k i n a B FeManasi nloi 222 000 000 113
C a mGGeuhri ona oen naa 122 900 900 934
G abon 2000
MM oa zd aa mg Kab sei qcn uay era 122 900 900 373
N a m ib ia 2 0 0 0
U gT aaZ nna dzmaa nb 2ii aa0 022 000 / 000 411
S o u t h A f r ic a 1 9 9 8
G . A L L C O U N T R IE S
0 20 40 60 80 100
20%
Poorest

17
Figure 2 The poor are less likely to receive treatment
Health, Nutrition and Population within Developing

20%
Richest
Avg
Source: Gwatkin et al., Socio-economic Differences in
Health, Nutrition and Population within Developing
Countries, 2007

unquestionably been one of the good news stories in

globalisation. However, the good news does not
extend to nutrition and child mortality. High growth
has not put India on track to achieve the MDG for
cutting child death rates. In fact, child death rates
have been falling far less impressively than in
countries with lower average incomes and lower
growth rates. For example, over the past decade,
Bangladesh has recorded one half of India’s per
capita income growth rate, but double its rate of
decline for child mortality. As for child mortality,
malnutrition levels have fallen at unimpressive rates
since 1990 (around 1.5% a year). Within this overall
picture, the rate of decline was faster for the richest
20% than the poorest 20%, faster for boys than girls,
faster for urban than rural areas, and faster for high
caste than low caste people. As these outcomes
suggest, inequality matters a great deal. The wide
gap between India’s economic and social indicators
raises important questions at many levels. It is
sometimes forgotten that India has among the
highest proportion of underweight children in the
world - and almost double the level for sub-Saharan
Africa. Indeed, around one-in-three of the world’s 150
malnourished children are Indian, implying that
India’s progress has global ramifications for the
MDGs.

18
Extreme income inequality can also hold back
extreme poverty reduction. Economic growth is a
necessary condition for poverty reduction. No country
can expect to halve extreme poverty by 2015 in the
absence of sustained growth. However, poverty
reduction is a function of two things: increments to
average and the share of that increment captured by
people living below the poverty line. As income
inequalities widen in many countries, the conversion
of growth into poverty reduction is weakening.
Countries such as Vietnam have been far more
efficient than, say, Peru in converting growth into
poverty reduction partly because the poorest 20%
capture around four times as much of national
income. In India, high growth has had only a modest
effect on poverty incidence, with the number of
extreme poor remaining roughly constant at around
300 million. As illustrated by modelling work in the
2005 Human Development Report, doubling the share
of increments to income captured by people living in
extreme poverty in Kenya would reduce the time
horizon for lifting the median household out of poverty
from 2030 to 2015. The underlying point is that the
MDGs require a focus not on economic growth or
equity, but on growth with equity. That imperative
requires strategies for enabling poor households to
produce their way out of poverty, along with social
protection programmes that reduce vulnerability and
extend opportunity.

What is true at a global level also applies at a

national level. Currently, the poorest 40% of the
world’s population, broadly corresponding to
households surviving on less than $2 a day, account
for around 3% of global GDP. Increasing that share

19
through national poverty reduction, more balanced
trade rules, and increased aid, would give a twin
impetus to equity and poverty reduction.
Unfortunately, the MDG commitment to a fairer
trading system appears to have little impact on the
positions adopted by a number of developed countries
in the Doha Round negotiations of the World Trade
Organisation. Unfair agricultural trade rules, residual
protectionism, and complex rules-of-origin
programmes continue to hold back some of the
world’s poorest countries. Moreover, the EU’s
approach to negotiations with sub-Saharan African
countries on Economic Partnership Agreements has
raised questions about its commitment to a trade and
development that prioritises poverty reduction.

The idea that there is a trade-off between growth and

equity is misplaced. Rising inequality within countries
has been one of the features of the current phase of
globalisation. However, some countries have
combined strategies for accelerated growth with
enhanced equity, with attendant gains for MDG
progress. Brazil is one of the most striking examples.
Since 1998, extreme poverty in Brazil has been falling
at three times the rate required to achieve the MDG
target. Over the same period, the Gini coefficient has
fallen by around three points, with the income of the
poorest 20% increasing at more than double the
average and six times the rate for the richest 20%.
Decomposition analysis suggests that redistribution
accounts for around 80% of total poverty reduction
since 2000. Impressive advances have also been
recorded on a wide range of social indicators. Since
1990, the child mortality rate has decline from 57
deaths for every 10,000 live births to 20. Similarly

20
rapid progress has been registered in cutting
malnutrition, increasing school participation, and
advancing literacy. Many factors have contributed to
Brazil’s social advance. Around 1% of GDP has been
transferred to the poorest households through the
Bolsa Familia’s targeted conditional cash transfer
(CCT) programmes in nutrition, education and health.
Health programmes have been reformed and scaled-
up to provide more efficient services for the poor: the
state of Cerea, with one of the highest child death
rates in the country, has achieved some of the most
rapid reductions in mortality. Underpinning all of
these achievements has been political leadership and
a strategy for social progress that has put equity at
the heart of the agenda, with a strong commitment to
narrow life-chance gaps between rich and poor,
between states, and between racial groups.

There is a strong case for putting equity goals at the

heart of a revised MDG agenda. The MDGs have done
a great deal to address poverty reduction and
deprivation. But we now need a second generation of
MDG targets to broaden the focus and increase the
weight attached to social justice and equity. Why
should the September 2008 summit treat this as a
priority? First, a commitment to the MDGs is
incompatible with the current level of tolerance for
extreme life-chance disparities. Second, equity-
related targets would encourage governments,
donors and multilateral agencies to attach more
weight and provide greater visibility to the most
disadvantaged and vulnerable groups that are being
left behind. Third, a strengthened focus on the
progress of these groups could serve as a catalyst for
the development of public policies aimed explicitly at

21
narrowing disparities in life chances. None of this is
to understate the complexity of constructing equity-
related targets, or the political sensitivity of turning
the spotlight on disparities that are persistent,
stubborn and difficult to change. That said, there are
examples to draw upon. For example, the United
Kingdom has a Programme for Action in health that
targets a 10% reduction in health outcome
inequalities as measured by the gap between ‘routine
and manual’ families and the average. The annual
reporting process has helped policy makers revise
policies in the light of progress towards the targets.
The matrix below provides some tentative and initial
illustrative ideas for discussion on what equity
enhancing MDG targets might look like.

Goal Illustrative Indicative

equity goals for Strategies
2015

1. Halve the Establish a Gini Strong macro-

share of people ceiling of X economic
living in extreme management
poverty Ensure that the and broad-based
poorest 20% growth strategy
Halve the share capture at least
of people living Y of increments Social
with to national protection
malnutrition income programmes
aimed at
Current Narrow the gap reducing risk
indicators: between the and extending
mean income opportunity
Progress in and the poorest (Mexico, Brazil
cutting $1 a day X% by Y and South Africa
poverty

22
Nutrition targets Halve the examples)
nutrition gap
The adoption of
between rural
‘zero hunger’
and urban areas
strategies for
Eliminate gender eliminating
gaps in nutrition malnutrition and
micro-nutrient
deficiency

4. Reduce child Cut by one-half Eliminate the

mortality by two- the gap in infant gap in
thirds and child immunisation
mortality coverage
Current between the between the
indicators: richest and richest 20% and
poorest 20% poorest 20%,
Under-five
and between
mortality Eliminate gender urban and rural
gaps in mortality areas
Infant mortality
Halve the Equalise the
Proportion of
mortality gap ratio of trained
children
between urban health workers,
immunised
and rural areas doctors and
against measles
teachers to
Halve the gap
people between
between the
urban and real
highest and
areas
lowest
child/infant Provide
mortality rate by universal access
province is no to basic health
more than X care that is free

23
 Progressively at the point of
reduce gaps in delivery
mortality based
Expand poverty-
on ethnicity,
focused
location,
maternal care
language and
and child
other markers
nutrition
for disadvantage
programmes

Monitor and
report annually
on progress
among low-
income
disadvantaged
groups and
regions

7. Halve the Halve the gap Sustainable and

proportion of between the equitable
people without richest and financing
access to safe poorest 20% in strategies, with
water and access to safe cross
sanitation water and subsidisation for
sanitation connection
Current subsidies for
indicators: Halve the gap in poor households
access to safe
Proportion of water and National
people using a sanitation strategies
safe water between urban stipulating
source and basic and rural areas strategies for
sanitation increasing
Ensure that access for poor
water accounts households,

24
for no more than slum dwellers
X% of household and remote rural
expenditure for areas
the poor
Strengthened
Every household integration of
has an water and
entitlement to at sanitation into
least 20 litres of Poverty
water as a basic Reduction
entitlement Strategy Papers
(PRSP)

25
Strengthening and renewing the goals – beyond
primary education

Having access to a good quality education is a basic

human right and an enabling condition for human
development. Education is an imperative for people to
be able to develop their capabilities and participate
fully in society. Beyond its intrinsic importance,
education is also a means to wider ends. The children
of better education parents – especially mothers – are
better nourished and less likely to suffer premature
death. Education contributes to economic growth and
rising productivity, with attendant benefits for
poverty reduction. In an increasingly knowledge-
based global economy, the distribution of educational
opportunity also carries an increasing weight in
framing the distribution of income and opportunity
worldwide. Viewed from a different perspective,
today’s inequalities in education are tomorrow’s
disparities in income, health, nutrition, and other
indicators for human progress. And while the
transmission mechanisms are complex, education is
also one of the foundations for democracy and human
rights.

The MDGs provide a highly restrictive (and flawed)

indicator for progress in education. Under Goal 2, the
education target is defined in terms of universal
primary education (UPE) – an indicator that is usually
understood in terms of completion of a full primary
cycle. Equity is addressed in Goal 3, which envisaged
equal enrolment in primary school for girls and boys
by 2005 and in secondary school by 2015. These
targets, arithmetically implausible on adoption, will
not be achieved. While universal enrolment and

26
gender parity are necessary preconditions for
progress, they provide an insufficient barometer of
progress in education. Many important dimensions
are missing. For example, early childhood
development, secondary education, and adult literacy
and lifelong-learning are conspicuous by their
absence from the MDG framework, even though they
are critical indicators for progress. The same is true
of education quality and learning outcomes. And
while gender inequalities are pervasive, insufficient
concern has been directed towards wider disparities.
One of the problems with MDG 2 is that it has
encouraged donors and governments to focus on
quantitative indicators at the primary level, leading to
a compartmentalised approach that diverts attention
from qualitative issues. The six indicators adopted
under Education for All framework adopted by
governments in 2000 provides a far more balanced,
relevant, and meaningful perspective.

Measured against the MDG goals, there has been a

great deal of progress. The number of out of school
children is declining. Since 1999 alone, the number of
children out of school has dropped from 96 million to
72 million, with a marked acceleration since 2002.
The decline has been most dramatic in South and
West Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Gender disparities
have been reduced, even though the gender parity
target has been missed. Globally, the weighted
average gross intake rate for girls rose from 91% to
94% of that for boys between 1999 and 2005.
However, gender gaps remain very large across sub-
Saharan Africa and South Asia in particular – and they
are deeper in secondary and post-secondary
education.

27
Even when measured against the minimalist
requirements of the goals themselves, there is a very
large unfinished agenda. There are still 17 countries
in sub-Saharan Africa with net enrolment rates below
80% - and demographics will increase the primary
school age population in the region by about one-fifth
over the next decade. While many countries are
progressing in enrolment, high levels of repetition and
low-levels of completion remain a concern. The
survival rate to the last grade of primary education is
very low for a large group of countries, including
many – such as Uganda, Mozambique, Rwanda and
Burkina Faso – that have achieved progress in
enrolment. Once again, there is a steep socio-
economic gradient in progression through school,
with children who are poor, female and rural
dominating the drop-out lists. Achieving universal
primary education in countries characterised by high
levels of poverty, grave financing constraints,
demographic pressure, HIV/AIDS and wider problems
poses political challenges of a high order. While
gender gaps may be shrinking, they remain very large
across sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia in
particular, becoming progressively deeper in
secondary and post-secondary education. Roughly
one-in-three out of school children live in fragile
states and that share is rising over time. These are
states characterised by weak institutional capacity,
chronic financing constraints, and vulnerability to
conflict.

Enhanced equity is an imperative for accelerated

progress. At the start of the run-in to 2015, many
countries face immense challenges even in terms of

28
the narrow MDG targets. Achieving UPE will require a
strengthened focus on the disadvantaged groups who
are the last into school, the most likely to repeat
grades, and the least likely to complete primary
school. Reaching the last 10-20% of children out of
school is difficult because of the extreme
marginalisation and chronic poverty of their
households. Retaining children in school, ensuring
that they complete a full primary cycle, and acquire a
decent education will require governments to address
head-on deeply entrenched, and mutually reinforcing,
inequalities based on gender, wealth, and location.
Being poor is one significant marker for educational
disadvantage. Being poor and rural multiplies the
effect. Being poor, rural and female creates a triple
burden – a burden illustrated by attainment profiles
for many countries (Figure 3). As pointed out in a
recent study, three-quarter of the girls out of school
are also from disadvantaged ethnic and caste groups
– and most are poor. Progress towards greater equity
is seldom uniform. For example, Bangladesh has
made rapid strides in increasing enrolment – to
around 67% - and the country has already attained
gender parity in primary and secondary school.
However, the enrolment rate for children in the
poorest quintile has increased modestly from 53% to
57%. The country is unlikely to achieve universal
primary education and completion by 2015 without
greater equity. While most countries have education
plans with broad statements of intent to reach the
poorest, many lack the bridge to the practical
strategies and financing for overcoming disparities.
This is unfortunate because many of the policies
needed would also accelerate progress towards
education for all.

29
Early childhood care and education

What happens before children enter school has a

critical bearing on later cognitive development and
learning outcomes. This is recognised in OECD
countries where a wide range of programmes such as
Head Start in the United States or Sure Start in the
UK aim to alleviate the conditions that perpetuate
cycles of disadvantage Pre-school interventions in
developing countries are critical. One half of children
in low income countries are malnourished at age 5.
Malnutrition and ill-health early in life doom many
children to cognitive deficits and low educational
attainments. The consequences can be observed in
school performance. Malnourished children start
school later, they are more likely to repeat grades or
drop out, and less likely to meet basic learning
assessments. Iodine deficiency is estimated to rob
some 3.5 million Ethiopian children of 15 IQ points,
reducing their ability to learn and concentrate.
Getting malnourished children into primary school is
clearly not an indicator for success. In the absence of
counter-veiling measures, the disadvantage that
children bring with them into school reinforces
inequalities in educational attainment and
achievement.

Early childhood care and education can make a

difference. Any strategy aimed at overcoming poverty
and nutritional disadvantage in the school has to
start when children are in the womb. As highlighted in
a recent Lancet series, the age from 0-2 is a vital
window of opportunity for creating learning potential.
Yet this is an area in which governments and donors
are failing, as witnessed by the slow progress

30
towards the MDG target of halving malnutrition.
Inadequate financing, weak targeting of vulnerable
groups and poor health service delivery all play a
part. Pre-school can play an important role breaking
cycles of disadvantage. Well-timed and targeted
intervention has the potential to create virtuous
cycles of improved health and enhanced educational
outcomes. This is what has happened under Mexico’s
Progressa programme and in less well-known
programmes in the Philippines, Bolivia and Jamaica.
Some of the more tangible results include enhanced
test score for disadvantaged children, a reduced
likelihood of drop out, and more years in school.
Recent evidence from Cambodia illustrates the point.
In this case children who have attended pre-school
have a 61% probability of survival to grade six,
compared to 51% for children without pre-school
(falling to 49% for children in the poorest 40% of the
population without pre-school).

International experience suggests that the children

most in need of early childhood support are least
likely to get it. Enrolment rates for early childhood
education are rising slowly from a low base. Gross
enrolment rates range from 14% in sub-Saharan
Africa, to over 60% in Latin America. Expansion has
been constrained by under-investment and acute
shortages of trained teachers. An additional problem
is the large disparity in enrolment between urban and
rural areas and rich and poor. In Bolivia, for example,
children from non-poor households are 50% more
likely to be in pre-school than children from poor
households. The large disparities in attendance at
pre-school draw attention to the importance of
distance, cost and wider pressures on poor

31
households as barriers to good quality primary
education.

32
The quality deficit

Progress in education quality is lagging behind

quantitative progress to universal primary education.
There are problems in cross-country comparisons of
education attainment levels. Even so, such evidence
as we have provides an insight into the scale of the
deficit and some of the hidden dimensions of global
education inequalities. Reading comprehension tests
organised for 43 countries under the Programme for
International Student Assessment (PISA) show about
15% of students in the OECD registering below level 1
(out of 5). The comparable figure for the Asian
countries participating is 45%, rising to 54% for Latin
America. In many countries, there may have been a
trade-off between quantity and quality, with rapid
increases in enrolment overwhelming the capacity of
teachers, schools and education infrastructure to
provide an acceptable level of education. Wider
examples of the quality gap include:

• while Latin America is close to achieving the

MDGs, the region’s education performance
indicators are exceedingly low. Among the 41
countries measured in the PISA reading exercise
in 2000 Mexico, Argentina, Chile and Brazil
ranked 34th, 35th and 36th and 37th respectively,
with Peru ranked 41st. The same countries have
the highest percentage of students below Level
1 (the lowest level) in mathematics. In the US,
concern over scientific education performance
relative to Japan has long been a source of
concern. Yet the gap between Peruvian and US
students is three times greater than the Japan-

33
 US gap. In Bolivia, national assessments record
less than one-half of students attaining passing
grade for reading, and less than one-third for
maths;

• the PIRLS 2001 assessment found that in a large

group of countries – including Morocco, the
Republic of Iran and Colombia – over 40% of
Grade 4 pupils read at or below the lowest level;

• in sub-Saharan Africa, learning assessments by

SACMEQ reveal large shortfalls in quality. In
Tanzania, one-quarter of 6th grade students were
unable to meet minimum numeracy standards,
and only one-in-five children achieved the
desired competency level. In Malawi, the
proportion of students meeting the desired level
for literacy was less than 10% in the SACMEQ 11
round (2000-2002). More worrying still, this was
one half of the proportion in SACMEQ 1 (1995-
1998) – a finding that powerfully demonstrates
how deteriorating quality can go hand-in-hand
with increased access; and,

• research in India covering 300,000 primary

schools found net enrolment rates of 90%, but
two-thirds of children were unable to read a
simple second-grade level paragraph.

Deficits in quality have important implications. The

very low level of learning evident in many countries
suggests that investments in education are yielding
sub-optimal returns. For the children involved, poor
education quality can have life-long consequences.
One study looking at cross-country research for 40

34
countries demonstrated a strong link between
earnings and cognitive skills. The same study found a
close fit between the dispersion in adult literacy
score and dispersion of income: in other words,
higher levels of inequality in income were associated
with higher levels of inequality in literacy. At a global
level, qualitative gaps are harder to gauge than
quantitative gaps measured in years of school, but
they are almost certainly more important in shaping
capacity to innovate and compete in an increasingly
knowledge-based global economy.

Quality problems highlight challenges facing the

education infrastructure. Within the school, physical
infrastructure, class size, and the presence (or
absence) of pedagogical inputs have a major bearing
on learning outcomes. The SACMEQ research found
that almost one half of schools needed major repairs
and documented a ‘normal’ environment of
overcrowded classrooms in which children often
lacked textbooks, pens and paper. Fully one half of
Grade 6 pupils in countries such as Malawi, Tanzania
and Zambia reported not having a single book. The
availability, quality and distribution of teachers are
another part of the quality equation. As one recent
review of teachers in fourteen low-income countries
puts it, “Very sizeable proportions of primary school
teachers, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, have low
levels of job satisfaction and are poorly motivated.
Many tens of millions of children are, therefore, not
being taught properly and not receiving even a
minimally acceptable level of education.” As pointed
out in UNESCO’s 2008 Global Monitoring Report, high
levels of teacher absenteeism - one product of low
morale, weak motivation, and poor accountability -

35
reduces instructional time well below the benchmark
for good practice (850-1000 hours per annum).

The poor quality of education has a direct bearing on

the MDGs. Enrolment into schools that deliver bad
quality education is not conducive to the MDG
targets. But poor quality education also has the
potential to slow or derail progress towards UPE. One
reason for this is that poor quality schooling reduces
the demand for education on the part of parents.
Another is that it leads to high levels of repetition and
drop-out, trapping education systems in a vicious
circle of inefficiency and inequity. The inefficiency
derives from the budget costs of repetition. On one
estimate, repetition costs Latin America around
$12bn annually – a huge inefficiency tax on
education. The inequity derives from the fact that it is
overwhelmingly the sons and daughters of the poor
that drop out of school or repeat grades.

The transition to secondary school

Progress towards UPE has brought into sharp relief

the importance of secondary school. Clearly, no
country can expect to prosper, to lay the foundations
for sustained human development, or to build an
inclusive society, in the absence of universal primary
education. By the same token, primary education has
to be viewed not as the destination but as a station
en route to higher levels of learning and skills
acquisition. There are at least four reasons to
supplement the current MDGs with a commitment on
secondary education. First, as countries progress
towards universal primary education demand for
secondary education will grow. Failure to respond to
that demand is likely to encourage drop-out from

36
primary school. Second, progress towards the MDGs
will require a flow of graduates from primary into
secondary school, and a reverse flow back from
secondary to into primary school via teacher training.
Third, under the right conditions secondary schooling
is associated with wide-ranging human development
dividends, including the empowerment of women,
child health, and productivity. Fourth, competiveness
in increasingly knowledge-intensive national and
global economies depends on the education and skills
associated with higher levels of learning, including
post-secondary and tertiary education. To summarise,
a focus on primary education to the near exclusion of
other levels is likely to prove ill-advised and self-
defeating.

There is a growing danger that secondary education

will become the locus for deepening inequalities in
life-chances. As more and more countries succeed in
moving towards achievement of universal basic
education, the transition to secondary school is
becoming the locus for new disparities. On one
estimate, there are 70 million children of secondary
school age in sub-Saharan Africa who have no access
to secondary school. Low rates of transition from
primary to secondary are reinforced by low rates of
transition from lower secondary to upper secondary,
with the gross enrolment rate (GER) for 2005 falling
from 38% to 24%. The children who do not make it to
secondary school are overwhelmingly poor, rural and,
in many countries, female. As one commentator puts
it, “Poverty reduction, predicated on higher levels of
knowledge, skill and intergenerational mobility,
requires the democratisation of access to secondary
schooling.” That injunction applies beyond sub-

37
Saharan Africa (Figure 4). Across much of the
developing world, the chances of making the
transition from primary to secondary education are
positively correlated with socio-economic status. In
Latin America, inequalities in the secondary school
system are reinforcing wider socio-economic
disparities. For example, while 88% of children from
the richest decile move steadily through the
secondary system without repetition, for the poorest
decile that share drops to 44%. Strengthening the
transition from primary to secondary is a step
towards mitigating wider global inequalities in
education, including those at the tertiary level. In
2005, the GER for tertiary education ranged from 66%
for developed countries, to 5% for sub-Saharan Africa
and 10% for South Asia. To put the statistical
comparison in context, children in developed
countries currently have a better chance of enrolling
in tertiary education than children in much of sub-
Saharan Africa have of completing primary education.

Literacy and lifelong learning

Literacy is a basic tool for making informed decisions

and participating in society. While illiteracy rates are
falling, there are still some 764 million people in
developing countries living without basic literacy
skills. There is a sense in which illiteracy today is the
product of past failures in education. The backlog is
being cleared at a slow pace. While there are serious
problems with measurement and data, the adult
literacy rate in developing countries rose from 68% to
77% between the periods 1985-1994 and 1995-2004.
Far more could be done. Many countries – Yemen,
Nepal, Malawi and Burundi among them – have

38
increased adult literacy rates by more than fifteen
percentage points. Progress at a global level will
depend critically on developments in the 15 countries
that account for three-quarters of adult illiteracy
around the world. Notwithstanding the immense
importance of literacy to the empowerment of people
and the opening-up of opportunities for lifelong
learning, the current MDG framework does not
include a literacy goal.

Redesigning the MDGs on education

The MDGs are not detailed policy prescriptions or

strategies. Their value is in signalling priorities and in
focussing attention on shared concerns. It would be
unrealistic to recast the MDGs into multiple micro-
level sector targets and goals. By the same token,
goals that provide a highly restrictive or distorted
vision will inevitably become less relevant as a
catalyst for action. Perhaps more than in any other
area, the education MDGs are out-of-touch with the
aspirations of children and parents, and are in urgent
need of renovation.

There are important lessons to be derived from the

Education for All agenda, which is discussed below.
This enshrines six broad thematic goals, some of
which – on EUP and gender equity – overlap with the
MDGs. The goals themselves are viewed as indivisible
– and for good reason. Sustain progress in any one
area is contingent on progress in other areas. For
example, Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE)
matters in its own right because it address child
health and nutrition concerns, as well as pre-school
cognitive development. But ECCE also matters

39
because it is one of the foundations for UPE. To state
the obvious, achieving universal enrolment when a
large section of the child population is hungry, sick,
disadvantaged by poverty and lacking the social and
cognitive skills needed to realise their potential is not
a good benchmark for progress. Similarly, adult
literacy – another key EFA goal – matters for both
intrinsic and instrumental reasons. It matters for
intrinsic reasons because it empowers women,
expands choice, and supports democracy. And it
matters for instrumental reasons because literate
mothers are more likely to send their children –
especially girl children – to school. The EFA
framework also places a premium on the quality of
the learning experience. It is this dynamic synergy
between different parts of the education and learning
spectrum that the MDG framework misses. Implicit in
the framework is the view of primary school as a
bubble that is somehow separated from other parts of
the education system, and loosely connected to
gender equity.

The starting point should be the wider range of goals

agreed in the Education for All (EFA) Conference in
Dakar, Senegal in 2000. The six EFA goals are far
broader than the MDGs, extending to education
quality, adult literacy, and post-primary education.
They are based on the ‘Dakar Framework for Action’,
which declared that by 2015, all children of primary-
school age would participate in free schooling of
acceptable quality, that adult illiteracy would be
halved, that progress would be made in providing
early childhood care and education, and that learning
opportunities for youth and adults and all aspects of
education quality would be improved. One of these

40
Dakar goals also committed the nations of the world
to achieving gender equality in education by 2015,
with a focus on ensuring girls’ full and equal access
to a good quality education. This goes beyond the
narrower goal of gender parity to take into account
teacher attitudes, violence against girls and wider
indicators.

The MDG framework would be strengthened and

made more relevant through creative alignment with
the EFA goals. One obvious danger is that of overload
and dilution: the MDGs have force partly because they
are limited. However, it is possible to envisage the
incorporation of a small number of quantified goals
and targets into the MDGs. Five areas suggest
themselves:

• monitor performance for enhanced equity. In

both the MDG and the EFA reporting processes,
governments report on average outcomes.
Reporting on disparities and the rate of progress
in the achievements of disadvantage groups,
would play the dual role of informing policy
design and drawing attention to the inequalities
in opportunity that are holding back progress. As
indicated in the previous section, global targets
could be agreed for reducing disparities based
on socio-economic status, location, race and
ethnicity, as well as gender;

• focus on early childhood and pre-school. The

MDGs should enshrine clear targets for
enhancing the opportunities and cognitive
development of children aged 0-8 years. The
ambition: to work towards a situation where no

41
 child enters school carrying the burden of
avoidable health and nutrition problems, and
where all children have an opportunity to develop
their cognitive and wider learning skills in pre-
school. One possible target for 2015 is a
threshold of at least 50% enrolment in pre-
school, with countries above this threshold
aiming to halve the share of children not
enrolled;

• the transition to secondary school. The

sequencing of targets is important. Progress in
secondary education is contingent on the rate of
enrolment, retention and completion at a primary
level, and on the recruitment and training of
teachers. An MDG in this area could take the
form of a commitment to increase lower-
secondary enrolment to at least 50% by 2015,
with a target of universal secondary education
by 2020. Once again, for countries above the
threshold the target could be calibrated in terms
of halving secondary enrolment deficits by 2015;

• introducing a quality indicator. UNESCO’s EFA

Global Monitoring Report has set out in some
detail the type of policies that can raise
education quality. Experience from several
countries also demonstrates that it is possible
simultaneously to raise quality and expand
access. However, there are serious difficulties in
assessing international progress in this area.
One reason for this is that many international
comparison exercises have been developed for
rich countries. If education quality is an
important aspect of progress, then we need an

42
 internationally normed tool against which we can
benchmark progress. Creating a valid measure
that can be used to track progress over time
should be seen as a priority, supplementing and
building on the wide-ranging national and
regional programmes now in operation. More
immediately, the MDGs could incorporate a proxy
indicator for quality, such as instructional time of
850-1,000 hours a year; and,

• targeting an adult literacy goal. The MDGs could

incorporate the EFA goal of achieving a 50%
improvement in adult literacy by 2015, with a
focus on accelerated progress to gender equity,
and equitable access to basic and continuing
education for all adults.

Translating revised goals into tangible outcomes will

require strengthened international cooperation. The
MDGs have been more meaningful in some areas than
others because they have backed targets with
practical strategies. Goals without strategies are not
a force for change. This is not the place to enter into
a wide-ranging policy discussion of what might be
involved. However, it is worth signalling some
priorities.

Donors are not delivering against their commitments

and will need to do more. UNESCO’s Global
Monitoring Report estimates that around $11 billion
annually is required from donors to achieve the
internationally agreed EFA commitments. This figure
breaks down into around $9bn for UPE and $1bn each
for early childhood and literacy. Of course, estimates
in the last two areas are tentative. However, what is

43
clear is that current donor disbursements are
insufficient. These are running at around $3 billion a
year. If the targets are to be reached the aid
financing gap has to be closed. There are several
problems to be addressed. Some major donors –
notably the US – just provide too little aid. That is
unfortunate, not least because USAID has a strong
education programme and a strong commitment
within that programme to primary education. Other
donors perform much better on overall aid levels and
have a strong commitment to education in general,
but a weak commitment to basic education. Both
France and Germany are cases in point because of
the very large – some would say excessive – share of
education spending directed towards bringing
university students to Europe. It is to be hoped that
the Anglo-French commitment to get 8 million African
children in primary school by 2010 will lead to an
increased investment in basic education. Within the
donor community, the Netherlands and the UK stand
out because they have backed a strong political
commitment to education with real resources. With
the 2006 announcement of a $15 billion commitment
to education over the next 10 years, the UK has
provided an important boost to cooperation in
education. The Fast Track Initiative (FTI) launched in
2002 is also expanding. At the end of 2006, pledges
totalled $1.1 billion. Next year, the FTI’s Catalytic
Fund could amount to as much as 10-15% of total aid
to education for low-income countries. However,
large financing gaps remain especially if expanded
commitments to secondary education are factored in.
According to one detailed analysis, the additional
costs associated with achieving universal primary
education amount to around 3% of regional GDP.

44
The structure of aid flows also matters. There are two
distinctive features of education financing that have
to be considered. First, recurrent costs, rather than
capital investment, account for the bulk of the
financing deficit. Second, there is a premium on long-
term predictability. Meeting education goals such as
those outlined above requires a long-term planning
horizon, not least to ensure that the education
system itself generates a flow of trained teachers.
Sub-Saharan Africa alone will require an additional
1.6 million primary school teachers just to achieve
UPE. An expanded MDG framework with
commitments on pre-school, secondary education,
and enhanced quality will require scaled-up
investments in teachers, which will in turn require
long-term commitments.

New priorities will have to be taken up in early

childhood development, adult literacy and education
quality. Accelerated progress towards enrolment in
good quality pre-school for the most disadvantaged
groups would yield wide-ranging benefits in
education, health, nutrition, and in breaking cycles of
disadvantage. What is needed is an international
Head Start programme for the world’s most
vulnerable children. Progress in this area will require
not just long-term financing commitments, but also
the development of institutional capacity and
teacher-training. Similar concerns arise in the
context of education quality. There is a legitimate
concern on the part of developing countries that
international assessment exercises should be
relevant, appropriate, and applied in ways that
strengthen national understanding. Developing

45
appropriate assessment instruments has to be a
partnership exercise. That exercise also has to build
capacity not just to conduct assessments, but to
institutionalise the use of assessment exercises in
policy design and evaluation. Donors and national
governments alike have a shared interest in
understanding what works – and donors should
prioritise this area in future dialogue.

Strengthening the focus on fragile states is a priority.

Fragile states represent an enormous challenge.
Progress in education is a requirement for
overcoming fragility, strengthening democracy, and
building peace. The problem is that many fragile
states lack the public financing and management
systems, the poverty reduction strategies, and the
education sector plans used by donors to signal a
commitment to the MDGs. The consequence is that
most fail the eligibility requirements for long-term
donor financing commitments. The Inter-agency
Network on Education in Emergencies (INEE) has
developed a range of innovative strategies and
standards aimed at addressing this problem. The
multi-donor trust fund in Afghanistan is an example.
However, attempts to develop a more systemic
institutional response have not yet gone beyond the
pilot project phase, and emergency and development
aid are too often managed as separate operations.
What is needed is a more streamlined approach.
Governments in fragile states seeking to rebuild their
societies and expand educational opportunities need
development partners with a long-term commitment
to building capacity, providing predictable aid flows,
and delivering the up-front investments on the scale
required. None of this is to understate the importance

46
of recipient accountability and transparency,
especially in relation to their citizens. But human
development realpolitik demands that donors look
beyond ad hoc approaches to the systemic response
required to address the special circumstances of
fragile states.

47
Looking to the future – climate change and
development

Climate change confronts the international

community with a distinctive set of challenges. It is
now widely recognised that global warming is not an
issue for the distant future. The impacts of higher
temperatures, more variable precipitation, more
extreme weather events, and sea level rises are
already being felt. High levels of uncertainty in
climate modelling makes attribution a hazardous
exercise. What is clear is that the risks and
vulnerabilities that come with climate change will be
heavily skewed towards the world’s poorest people.
Heavily dependent on agriculture, and living in flood-
prone coastal areas, drought-prone semi-arid regions,
or on hillsides and slums exposed to extreme storms
and floods, the world’s poor stand on the climate
change front-line.

The links between climate change and the MDGs

have not been sufficiently thought through. Climate
change is already influencing the rate of the progress
towards the MDGs. That influence will grow over
time. Deep mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions is
crucial if the worst effects of climate change are to
be avoided in the 21st Century. However, even with
mitigation, climate system inertia means that we are
locked into a pre-determined global warming
trajectory for the next three decades. As argued in
detail in the 2007 Human Development Report there
is today a real and present danger that climate
change will first slow, then stall and then reverse the
advances achieved under the MDGs. Across the
developed world, governments are putting in place

48
strategies aimed at climate-proofing their societies
from emerging risks. Private insurance companies are
developing innovative strategies to climate proof
their assets and liabilities. We need equally
innovative strategies for climate proofing MDG
achievements in the post-2015 world creating the
conditions for sustained progress.

The basic carbon arithmetic driving climate change is

well-known but bears repetition. There is a broad
consensus that a threshold of 2o C should be viewed
as a target for avoiding dangerous climate change.
While there is a high level of uncertainty in the
modelling, having a 50:50 chance of staying below
that threshold will require stabilisation of CO2 e
concentrations at a level no higher than 450 parts per
million (ppm) (they are now around 380ppm).
Achieving this target will require a cut in global
emissions of at least 50% by 2050, or from 7 tonnes
of CO2 per capita to 2-3 tonnes. The bad news is that
the emissions curve is heading North instead of
South. According to the International Energy Agency,
energy-related CO2 emissions alone will double by
2030. We are on track for greenhouse gas
concentration levels in excess of 550 ppm before mid-
century on a rising trend. As one climate model has
demonstrated, we are set to use the entire
sustainable carbon budget for the 21st Century by the
mid-2030s, in effect running up a large, unpayable
carbon debt for future generations. If we continue on
our current course, we are more likely to breach a 5o
C climate change threshold by the end of the 21st
Century than to stay within 2oC.

49
Responding to climate change will require new
approaches to international cooperation in mitigation
and adaptation. The twin challenge posed by climate
change is easy to summarise. As a global community
we have to mitigate the impacts that are still
avoidable and adapt to those that are not. Moving
from description to action is more difficult.
Successful mitigation will require a transformation in
energy policy and unprecedented levels of
cooperation on technology transfer. Adaptation will
require the mobilisation of new resources for
investment in climate risk management under
conditions of great uncertainty. In both areas, we
lack the multilateral institutional frameworks needed
to address the challenge. Developing those
frameworks is a priority because of the urgency of
the problem: there is no rapid rewind button for
eliminating greenhouse gas stocks.

Mitigation commitments should be brought into the

MDG framework for international cooperation (Goal
8). The post-2012 Kyoto agreement has to set a
target for emission reductions commensurate with
the scale of the challenge. This means cuts of 80-90%
in rich countries by 2050. Equity demands that
developed countries act as first movers because of
their historic responsibilities and technological
capabilities. However, even with these reductions,
developing countries will also have to bend their
emissions curve downwards, taking on mitigation
commitments from 2020. The mitigation agenda
poses a daunting challenge and huge opportunities.
Emissions trading, carbon finance and technology
transfer form the three legs for a strategy that could
combine mitigation with enhanced access to

50
affordable, low-carbon energy in developing
countries.

There is an important link between mitigation and

development agenda. Inadequate access to basic
energy services is undermining human welfare,
holding back, and obstructing poverty reduction
efforts. There are over 2 billion people whose access
to energy depends not on the flick of a switch, but on
long walks to collect firewood. Many developing
countries confront the twin policy imperative of
meeting current energy needs and expanding access.
An obvious danger from a climate change mitigation
perspective is that increased energy use in
developing countries will undermine any prospect of a
sustainable climate. Developing countries as a group
will account for over 80% of the projected increase in
energy use to 2030, with coal demand set to increase
by a factor of three in the first half of the century. On
current investment patterns, most countries are
expanding energy supply through a carbon-intensive
infrastructure that will lock the world into global
warming. Set against this bleak scenario, there are
some very real opportunities. Using finance and
technology transfer to raise average efficiency levels
in India or Chinese coal plants to OECD standards
would cut emissions by around one-third. Outside of
the coal sector, renewable energy and the early
adaptation of breakthrough technologies for
achieving zero-emissions from coal could redefine
what is possible in terms of early mitigation.

Making a transition from project-based to programme-

based financing is critical. Carbon markets are
expanding. The EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme is

51
currently operating at around $25 billion annually.
Project-based transactions through the Kyoto
Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM)
reached around $5 billion in 2005, with developing
countries supplying 450 million tonnes of carbon
equivalent credits. There are two problems with
building on the current model. First, mitigation credits
are dominated by a small group of large emitters such
as China, India, Brazil and Mexico. Sub-Saharan Africa
accounts for just 1-2% of CDM credits. Second, the
CDM model comes with high transaction costs
because it is project based. There is an urgent need
to move towards programme level finance for entire
energy sectors, linking carbon finance to private
sector investment under a model that benchmarks
reductions for entire energy sectors. Instead of
focussing on plant-level emission curves, the aims
should be to link low-carbon financing to the task of
cutting national emissions through support for
greater energy efficiency and renewable energy.

As carbon markets deepen and broaden, there is a

potential to rapidly expand the flow of carbon finance
and technology transfer. By covering the incremental
cost of moving on to a lower carbon trajectory, rich
countries can contribute to the creation of a global
public good (namely, a more secure climate through
efficient mitigation) and the development of low-
carbon energy systems. However, at present there is
a gap in the aid and finance architecture. Carbon
markets have the potential to generate large flows of
revenue. It is important for countries to cooperate in
regulating that market to (i) ensure that emissions
trading produce genuine emission reductions, which
has not always been the case to date and (ii) to

52
broaden the distribution of benefits. Measures are
needed to ensure that the poorest countries in sub-
Saharan Africa and elsewhere have access to carbon-
finance resources for the development of hydropower
and renewable energy. More broadly, we need a
global plan of action of low carbon finance and
technology transfer. Financing will be required on
more concessional rates than those current applied
by multilateral development banks, with different
blends of finance (concessional, grant, risk guarantee
and so on) applied to different countries. The 2007
Human Development Report suggested an annual ball-
park financing figure of around $20 billion, with the
World Bank managing the subsidy component of
investments under a revised governance structure.
The Clean Technology Fund, one of the World Bank’s
Climate Investment Funds, could be adapted to this
purpose.

Adaptation has received insufficient attention as an

MDG issue and insufficient financing. The case for
international cooperation on adaptation is rooted in
principles of social justice, legal redress, and human
rights. As Oxfam has pointed out, the International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
includes the following injunction: “In no case may a
people be deprived of its own means of subsistence.”
The actions of rich nations clearly violate that
injunction. Beyond broad principle, the case for
adaptation is rooted in the same commitments that
shaped the MDGs themselves. The multilateral
response has been desperately slow. While developed
countries are investing heavily in climate-proofing,
only around $20-30 million in total has been mobilised
for climate change adaptation over the past three

53
years. This is a tiny fraction of what many OECD
countries spend on flood defence in a month.

The focus for adaptation should be on climate-risk

management. There is sometimes a tendency to
focus on the catastrophic aspects of climate change
risks. Without downplaying the potential for long-term
ecological catastrophe, this has diverted attention
from near-term incremental risk facing the poor: when
you are close to the edge, it doesn’t take a big push
for you to go over. There are still 2.1 billion people in
rural areas living on less than $2 a day, and 880
million on less than $1 a day. Most of these people
will not have to await ‘catastrophic’ climate change
events to push them over the edge. The threat for
them is a gradual ratcheting-up of risk and
uncertainty in an environment marked by acute
vulnerability and limited coping capacities. Climate
projections provide an insight into the broad shifts in
systemic risk in agriculture. One study points to a
loss of 9% in the developing world’s agricultural
production potential, rising to 16% for sub-Saharan
Africa. For basic food staples such as maize in
southern Africa, the productivity impacts are far
stronger, with estimates for decline ranging from
14%-50%.

Part of the adaptation challenge is to prevent the

conversion of short-term climate shocks into long-
term vulnerability. The 2008 Human Development
Report explored this theme by drawing on micro-level
household data. It looked at the impact of drought by
comparing the nutritional status of children aged 5
born in a drought district in a drought year, with the
status of children not born during a drought. The

54
findings are instructive. In Ethiopia, children born
during a drought year were 36% more likely to be
malnourished at age five. Put differently, around 2
million children were malnourished because their
parents had been unable to cope with a single
drought event. Findings for Kenya were of a similar
order of magnitude. As these studies demonstrate,
short-term climate shocks have the potential to set in
train long-run cycles of disadvantage that destroy
potential and lock people in poverty. When
households are forced to cope with events such as
droughts by cutting nutrition, reducing health
spending, taking children out of school, or selling off
their productive assets, they are often heading on a
one-way journey into lifelong poverty.
Counteracting these threats requires wide ranging
policies encompassing the creation of social safety
nets to protect assets during periods of stress – the
Productive Safety Net Programme in Ethiopia is an
example – health and nutrition interventions, and
increased investment in small-scale water harvesting.

Mobilising resources and creating a governance

structure that gives poor countries and vulnerable
people a voice is an immediate priority. Calculations
set out in the 2007 Human Development Report
estimate the additional costs of adaptation financing
at around $80 billion. While the headline figure is
large, this represent only around 0.2% of rich country
GDP in 2015. Additional financing is just one part of
the equation. Donors have repeatedly stressed their
commitment to increased coordination,
harmonisation, country ownership, and reduced
transaction costs in aid. What has happened in
adaptation financing does not conform to this

55
commitment. At the Bali climate change summit in
2007, an important agreement was reached on the
enactment of the Adaptation Fund based on a CDM
levy under the UNFCCC framework. Governance
structures were agreed that give developing
countries a greater voice on the Adaptation Fund
Board than they have previously enjoyed in the
management of adaptation funds under the auspices
of the Global Environment Facility (GEF), which was
widely viewed as unresponsive. Subsequently, the
World Bank has created an Adaptation Pilot Fund with
a target size of $1 billion.

There are three fundamental problems with the

current framework. First, there is no obvious rationale
for two overlapping facilities with almost identical
remits: this is a prescription for duplication. Second,
developing countries have a stronger voice in the
management of the UNFCCC Adaptation Fund. Third,
it is not clear that the creation of vertical and
horizontal funds is appropriate for the task in hand.
Given the large uncertainties, the difficulties entailed
in identifying incremental risk, and the systemic
nature of the risk itself, there is a strong case for
integrating adaptation into Poverty Reduction
Strategy Papers and existing country strategies by
scaling-up climate risk management interventions.

56
 Figure 3: Wealth, gender and location influence education survival
TANZANIA BURKINA FASO PERU BANGLADESH
Gr ade sur vival pr ofile, age 10-19 Gr ade sur vival pr ofile, age 10-19 Gr ade sur vival pr ofile, age 10-19 Gr ade sur vival pr ofile, age 10-19

1 1 Richest quintile 1
1
Quintile 4
0 ,9 0 ,9 0 ,9 Quintile 3 0 ,9

0 ,8 0 ,8 Quintile 2 0 ,8
0 ,8

0 ,7 0 ,7 0 ,7 0 ,7
Richest quintile
0 ,6 0 ,6 0 ,6 Poorest Quintile 0 ,6

Porportion
Porportion

Porportion

Porportion
Quintile 4
0 ,5 0 ,5 0 ,5 0 ,5
Richest quintile Quintile 3
0 ,4 Richest quintile 0 ,4 0 ,4 0 ,4

0 ,3 0 ,3 0 ,3 0 ,3 Quintile 2

Quintile 4 0 ,2
0 ,2 0 ,2 0 ,2
Quintile 4
Quintile 3 Quintile 3 Poorest Quintile
0 ,1 0 ,1 0 ,1 0 ,1
Quintile 2 Quintile 2
Poorest Quintile Poorest Quintile
0 0 0 0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Grade Grade Grade Grade

TANZANIA BURKINA FASO PERU BANGLADESH

Grade survival profile, age 10-19 Grade survival profile, age 10-19 Grade survival profile, age 10-19 Grade survival profile, age 10-19

1 1 1 1
MalUrb
0 ,9 0 ,9 0 ,9 FemUrb 0 ,9

0 ,8 0 ,8 0 ,8 MalRur 0 ,8

0 ,7 0 ,7 FemRur 0 ,7
0 ,7

0 ,6 0 ,6 0 ,6 0 ,6

P o rp o rt io n
Po rp o rtio n

Po rp o rtio n

Po rp o rtio n
MalUrb
FemUrb
0 ,5 0 ,5 FemUrb 0 ,5 0 ,5
MalUrb
FemRur
0 ,4 0 ,4 0 ,4 0 ,4 MalRur
MalUrb
FemUrb
0 ,3 0 ,3 0 ,3 0 ,3

0 ,2 0 ,2 0 ,2 0 ,2
MalRur
FemRur MalRur
0 ,1 0 ,1 0 ,1 0 ,1
FemRur

0 0 0 0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Grade Grade Grade Grade

Source: Deon Filmer and Lant Pritchett, Educational

Attainment and Enrolment Around the World, WB, 2007

57
Figure 4: Disadvantages increase at post-primary levels.

58
 HONDURAS MOZAMBIQUE RWANDA INDIA
Pr opor tion enr olled by age and level of education Pr opor tion enr olled by age and level of education Pr opor tion enr olled by age and level of education Pr opor tion enr olled by age and level of education

24 24 24 24
23 23 23 23
Richest 20% 22 Poorest 20% 22 22 22
21 21 21 21
Richest 20% Poorest 20% Richest 20% Poorest 20% Richest 20% Poorest 20%
20 20 20 20
19 19 19 19
18 18 18 18
17 17 17 17
16 16 16 16
15 15 15 15
14 14 14 14
13 13 13 13
12 12 12 12
11 11 11 11
10 10 10 10
9 9 9 9
8 8 8 8
7 7 7 7
6 6 6 6

1,0 0,8 0,6 0,4 0,2 0,0 0,2 0,4 0,6 0,8 1,0 1,0 0,8 0,6 0,4 0,2 0,0 0,2 0,4 0,6 0,8 1,0 0,8 0,6 0,4 0,2 0,0 0,2 0,4 0,6 0,8 1,0 1,0 0,8 0,6 0,4 0,2 0,0 0,2 0,4 0,6 0,8 1,0

HONDURAS MOZAMBIQUE RWANDA INDIA

Pr opor tion enr olled by age and level of education Pr opor tion enr olled by age and level of education Pr opor tion enr olled by age and level of education Pr opor tion enr olled by age and level of education

24 24 24 24
23 23 23 23
22 22 22 22
21 21 Female 21 21
Male Female Male Male Female Male Female
20 20 20 20
19 19 19 19
18 18 18 18
17 17 17 17
16 16 16 16
15 15 15 15
14 14 14 14
13 13 13 13
12 12 12 12
11 11 11 11
10 10 10 10
9 9 9 9
8 8 8 8
7 7 7 7
6 6 6 6

1,0 0,8 0,6 0,4 0,2 0,0 0,2 0,4 0,6 0,8 1,0 1,0 0,8 0,6 0,4 0,2 0,0 0,2 0,4 0,6 0,8 1,0 1,0 0,8 0,6 0,4 0,2 0,0 0,2 0,4 0,6 0,8 1,0 1,0 0,8 0,6 0,4 0,2 0,0 0,2 0,4 0,6 0,8 1,0

HONDURAS MOZAMBIQUE RWANDA INDIA

Pr opor tion enr olled by age and level of education Pr opor tion enr olled by age and level of education Pr opor tion enr olled by age and level of education Pr opor tion enr olled by age and level of education
24
23 24 24
24
22 23 23
23
22 21 Rural 22 22
Urban
21 20 21 21
Urban Rural Urban Rural Urban Rural
20 19 20 20
19 18 19 19
18 17 18 18
17 16 17 17
16 15 16 16
15 15 15
14
14 14 14
13
13 13 13
12
12 12 12
11 11
11 11
10 10 10 10
9 9 9 9
8 8 8 8
7 7 7 7
6 6 6 6
1,0 0,8 0,6 0,4 0,2 0,0 0,2 0,4 0,6 0,8 1,0 1,0 0,8 0,6 0,4 0,2 0,0 0,2 0,4 0,6 0,8 1,0 1,0 0,8 0,6 0,4 0,2 0,0 0,2 0,4 0,6 0,8 1,0 1,0 0,8 0,6 0,4 0,2 0,0 0,2 0,4 0,6 0,8 1,0

Source: Deon Filmer and Lant Pritchett, Educational

Attainment and Enrolment Around the World, WB, 2007

59
Primary

Secondary

Post secondary

60