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Equality as a Global Goal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 June 2016

Edward Anderson
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Extract

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were established following the UN Millennium Declaration, which was approved by the UN General Assembly in September 2000. Described by some as the “world's biggest promise,” they set out a series of time-bound targets to be achieved by the international community by 2015, including a halving of extreme poverty, a two-third reduction in child mortality, a three-quarter reduction in maternal mortality, and universal primary education. The MDGs were, however, often criticized for having a “blind spot” with regard to inequality and social injustice. Worse, they may even have contributed to entrenched inequalities through perverse incentives. As some have argued, in order to achieve progress toward the MDG targets at the national level, governments focused their attention on the “easy to reach” populations and ignored more marginalized, vulnerable groups. The aim of this essay is to examine the extent to which this widespread criticism has been successfully addressed in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), approved by the UN General Assembly in September 2015.

Type
Roundtable: Human Rights and the Post-2015 Development Agenda
Information
Ethics & International Affairs , Volume 30 , Issue 2 , Summer 2016 , pp. 189 - 200
Copyright
Copyright © Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs 2016 

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References

NOTES

1 See David Hulme, “The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs): A Short History of the World's Biggest Promise,” BWPI Working Paper No. 100 (2009), Institute for Development Policy and Management, University of Manchester.

2 See Naila Kabeer, “Can the MDGs Provide a Pathway to Social Justice? The Challenge of Intersecting Inequalities,” Institute of Development Studies (IDS)/United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), New York, 2010; Malcolm Langford, “A Poverty of Rights: Six Ways to Fix the MDGs,” IDS Bulletin 41, no. 1 (2010), pp. 83–89; and Catarina de Albuquerque, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation, “The Future Is Now: Eliminating Inequalities in Sanitation, Water and Hygiene” (2012).

3 See Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, “Poverty and Inequality—Challenges in the Era of Globalization,” in A. Mark-Jungkvist and S. Ask, eds., The Adventure of Peace: Dag Hammarskjöld and the Future of the United Nations (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2006); Jan Vandemoortele, “The MDG Conundrum: Meeting the Targets without Missing the Point,” Development Policy Review 27, no. 4 (2009), pp. 355–71; Jan Vandemoortele, “The MDG Story: Intention Denied,” Development and Change 42, no. 1 (2011), pp. 1–21; Jan Vandemoortele and Enrique Delamonica, “Taking the MDGs Beyond 2015: Hasten Slowly,” IDS Bulletin 41, no. 1 (2010), pp 60–69; and United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, Flagship Report 2010: Combating Poverty and Inequality (Geneva: UNRISD, 2010).

4 High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda, A New Global Partnership: Eradicate Poverty and Transform Economies through Sustainable Development, May 30, 2013. Lower secondary education corresponds to Level 2 of the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED). This typically consists of the first three years of schooling after the completion of primary education.

5 See United Nations System Task Team on the Post-2015 Development Agenda, Addressing Inequalities: The Heart of the Post–2015 Agenda and the Future We Want for All, May 2012; High-Level Panel, A New Global Partnership.

6 United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network, An Action Agenda for Sustainable Development: Report for the UN Secretary-General, June 6, 2013, p. 29.

7 See Save the Children, Born Equal: How Reducing Inequality Could Give Our Children a Better Future (London, U.K.: Save the Children, 2012); Kevin Watkins, “Inequality as a Barrier to Human Development,” Kapuscinski Development Lecture, Stockholm School of Economics, March 5, 2013; Lars Engberg-Pedersen, “Development Goals Post 2015: Reduce Inequality,” Danish Institute for International Studies, Copenhagen, 2013; Alex Cobham and Andy Sumner, “Putting the Gini Back in the Bottle? ‘The Palma’ as a Policy-Relevant Measure of Inequality” (2013); UNRISD, Inequalities and the Post-2015 Development Agenda, Research and Policy Brief No. 15, October 2012; and Michael Doyle and Joseph Stiglitz, “Eliminating Extreme Inequality: A Sustainable Development Goal, 2015–2030,” Ethics & International Affairs 28, no. 1 (2014).

8 See Engberg-Pedersen, “Development Goals Post 2015: Reduce Inequality,” and Charles Gore, “Reducing International Income Inequality,” Broker, January 29, 2013.

9 High-Level Panel, A New Global Partnership, p. 16.

10 See Stephan Klasen, “No, We Don't Need an MDG for Inequality,” Broker, December 17, 2012; see also Albuquerque, “The Future is Now”; Claire Melamed, “Putting Inequality in the Post-2015 Picture,” Overseas Development Institute, London, March 2012; and the United Nations System Task Team on the Post-2015 Development Agenda, Addressing Inequalities.

11 High-Level Panel, A New Global Partnership.

12 Resolution Adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on September 25, 2015, “Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,” UN document A/RES/70/1, p. 13. See also the Report of the United Nations Open Working Group of the General Assembly on Sustainable Development Goals, Open Working Group Proposal for Sustainable Development Goals, UN document A/68/970, August 12, 2014, p. 9.

13 United Nations Inter-Agency Expert Group on SDG Indicators (IAEG-SDG), “Results of the List of Indicators Reviewed at the Second IAEG-SDG Meeting (October 26–28, 2015),” November 2, 2015.

14 United Nations System Task Team on the Post-2015 UN Development Agenda, “Statistics and Indicators for the Post-2015 Development Agenda,” New York, July 2013; Cobham and Sumner, “Putting the Gini Back in the Bottle?”

15 John Roemer, Equality of Opportunity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998); Adam Swift, Political Philosophy: A Beginner's Guide for Students and Politicians (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2006); David Miller, “What is Social Justice?” in Nick Pearce and Will Paxton, eds., Social Justice: Building a Fairer Britain (London, U.K.: Politico's Publishing, 2005); and the World Bank, World Development Report 2006: Equity and Development (New York: Oxford University Press for the World Bank, 2005).

16 Swift, Political Philosophy, p. 99.

17 Ibid., p. 101.

18 Francisco Ferreira and Jérémie Gignoux, “The Measurement of Inequality of Opportunity: Theory and an Application to Latin America,” Review of Income and Wealth 57, no. 4 (2011), pp. 622–57.

19 See Watkins, “Inequality as a Barrier to Human Development.”

20 Ferreira and Gignoux, “The Measurement of Inequality of Opportunity.”

21 See Branko Milanovic, Worlds Apart: Measuring International and Global Inequality (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2005); and Branko Milanovic, The Haves and the Have-Nots: A Brief and Idiosyncratic History of Global Inequality (New York: Basic Books, 2011).

22 Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR), Who Will Be Accountable? Human Rights and the Post-2015 Development Agenda, New York and Geneva, 2013.

23 See Milanovic, Worlds Apart.

24 Olav Kjorven, “Why—So Far—the Millennium Development Goals Have Been a Success,” UNDP, Bureau for Development Policy, New York, August 23, 2011.