Time for a Rethink

• Author: Jagdish Bhagwati
• Position: University Professor, Economics and Law, at Columbia University and Senior Fellow in International Economics at the Council on Foreign Relations, New York.

AT the start of what became known as the Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations, many proposed it be named the Millennium Round. But that suggestion went nowhere after a wit observed that this could mean it would take a millennium before the negotiating nations would reach consensus to close the Round.

This is not quite the problem with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs; see Box 1 in “Regaining Momentum” in this issue of F&D). They are not specific commitments by nation-states whose feet would be held to the fire in case of “default” or shortfall—the way that, say, a multinational trade agreement creates obligations through the World Trade Organization (WTO). The MDGs are in fact aspirational do-good targets in selected areas, often with quantitative dimensions (for example, halving the hunger rate, not just reducing it) and have defined dates—with the exhortation that all goals be met everywhere by September 2015. But there are no repercussions on any nations if the goals are not met, as seems likely in most cases.

It is not surprising then that the MDGs have been affirmed repeatedly by consensus among all United Nations (UN) member states; one would have to be positively ghoulish—and unmindful of the fact that failure to achieve carries no penalties—to abstain or object. But this does not mean that when UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan proposed the MDG targets, based on the Millennium Report drafted by Assistant Secretary-General John Ruggie’s team, there were no objections from nations opposed to specific MDGs. For example, South Africa did not initially wish to have a reference made to HIV/AIDS. And when multilateral agencies like the World Bank began recording progress toward the MDGs, presumably with implications for aid flows, representatives of countries like India did start recording objections to certain MDG targets. Still, there are some skeptical and even hostile questions that must be asked and answered if we are to assess the MDG initiative meaningfully on its 10th anniversary.

Setting priorities

From the outset, critics of the MDGs have asked, why these specific MDGs and not other, possibly more desirable, targets? For example, many activists have been particularly concerned that the gender-related targets addressed by MDGs 3 and 5 (on gender equality and maternal health) exclude issues such as the trafficking of women. And scholars and activists concerned with gender issues deplore the fact that gender pay equality is not specifically mentioned. Although the MDGs suggest comprehensiveness, especially when the subgroups of “indicators for monitoring progress” are spelled out, they are in fact selective. And it is regrettable that the UN officials in charge of the MDGs have not explained why the chosen MDGs are more socially desirable than those that were excluded, or examined whether they ought to be reset. It appears that once the MDGs were chosen alongside the associated indicators, attention shifted to overseeing and even steering progress toward them. As a result, even the chosen MDGs have not been systematically examined in terms of social cost-benefit analysis, including trade-offs among the different MDGs—which we must confront if all MDGs cannot be achieved simultaneously.

As it happens, even within individual MDGs, there...