Abstract
The Millennium Development Goals (MDG) programme was an ambitious attempt to encourage a globalised solution to important but often-overlooked development problems. The programme led to wide-ranging development but it has also been criticised for unrealistic and arbitrary targets. In this paper, we show how country-specific development targets can be set using stochastic, dynamical system models built from historical data. In particular, we show that the MDG target of two-thirds reduction of child mortality from 1990 levels was infeasible for most countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. At the same time, the MDG targets were not ambitious enough for fast-developing countries such as Brazil and China. We suggest that model-based setting of country-specific targets is essential for the success of global development programmes such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). This approach should provide clear, quantifiable targets for policymakers.
Highlights
Initiated in 2000, the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) programme addressed eight major areas of concern for developing and under-developed countries identified by the United Nations
We quantitatively demonstrate that the MDG targets were set without due regard to historical trajectories for vulnerable countries, setting them up for failure as argued by others [4, 12]
While demonstrating that qualitative criticism of the MDG targets is justified, we provide an generalisable methodology that can provide country-specific, quantitative targets based on realistic prediction scenarios
Summary
Initiated in 2000, the MDG programme addressed eight major areas of concern for developing and under-developed countries identified by the United Nations. Based on an understanding of human development from the seminal works of [1] and [2] among others, the MDG programme was built on similar historical ventures [3]. Rights-based campaigners have pointed to the inadequacy of the MDG framework to address key issues in development as it ignores imbalances and inequalities within countries [7]. A more general question has been raised as to whether having quantitative goals without addressing causative questions is useful or if they might even be counter-productive to overall human development in the long run [8]. Quite apart from the PLOS ONE | DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0171560 February 27, 2017
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