UNDP

Here is the full version of the interview with Jan Vandemoortele – one of the architects of the Millennium Development Goals

 

What have we learnt since 2000? What should have been done differently with regards to the goals?

The key lesson is that the MDGs are good servants but bad masters. With all their shortcomings and imperfections, the MDGs have been helpful in generating support for human development, human wellbeing and human rights. They serve also those whose specific aspect or dimension of development is not captured by the MDGs. Regretfully, the common reaction of those whose dimensions are not captured adequately is to criticize the MDGs. In so doing, they implicitly consider the MDGs as the master, not as their servant. The one aspect that should be handled differently is to ensure that numerical targets that are agreed at the global level cannot be used to assess the performance at the country level. The biggest misconception about the MDGs is that all countries must meet the same numerical targets for the world to meet these targets. This is not only wrong; it is also unfair for the countries with low initial levels of development. It is a tragic that this misconception has turned respectable performance in Africa into a message of failure because the region does not meet global targets – which placed the bar too high for Africa. Yet, Africa’s contribution to global progress has been very respectable. Actually, it has been above par in several domains compared with other regions. The truth is that Africa is not missing the targets but that most analysts are missing the point. Next time around, it needs to be made much more explicit that the MDGs are collective targets; not one-size-fit-all yardsticks for assessing country-level performance.

 

What – in your opinion – is the goals’ greatest achievement?

For better or for worse, the MDGs have had staying power. They have energized support for human development across the world. There are many criticisms that have been formulated vis-à-vis the MDGs, but indifference cannot be held against them. They have mobilized stakeholders and galvanized leaders around the world. A recent survey of civil society organizations in development countries show that despite the many issues they all raise about the current MDGs, the large majority of them wants to have a similar framework for development beyond 2015. It is only a small minority, albeit a vocal one, that prays for 2015 to come so that the MDG-file can be closed forever.

 

You have often talked about how difficult it is to establish clear and meaning full targets and indicators? Are there any of the MDGs that you find especially difficult to measure?

The world is reportedly on-track for three targets: poverty, safe drinking water and slum dwellers. However, they all fail to satisfy the three-fold condition of (i) clarity of concept, (ii) solidity of indicator and (iii) robustness of data. A poor person and a slum dweller are ill-defined; while access to safe water cannot readily be measured. Targets that are formulated in a fuzzy way; that use imprecise indicators and for which data are tenuous open the door for subjective interpretations of reality under the semblance of scientific rigor. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but not to their own facts. The only way to avoid pseudo-scientific assessments is to make sure that targets are clearly defined, use solid indicators and have robust data. Otherwise, we will generate a plurality of facts and truths – often contradictory and subjective. The danger, then, is that the MDG-discourse becomes a proxy war among ideological factions that is no longer evidence-based. The poverty target is a case in point. The claim that the world is lifting millions of people out of poverty takes advantage of an ill-defined concept and exploits fuzzy statistics. Hence, the poverty debate is informed more by ideology than by objective observations. The international poverty norm of $1.25 per day is convenient because it helps to maintain the conventional narrative that growth is good for the poor. When the poverty line is set at an exceedingly low level and when it is fixed in ways so that it moves with aggregate growth, then it is no surprise to find ‘scientific’ evidence that growth is good for the poor. This is perhaps the greatest paradox of our times. Most observers and policymakers readily agree that poverty must be seen as multi-dimensional, yet its quantification reinforces a one-dimensional interpretation — i.e. money-metric. The result is that subjectivity is clouding the debate. The readiness to take the poverty estimates of the World Bank at face value is not due to a lack of statistical literacy; it clearly serves another purpose, which has nothing to do with statistics or scientific rigor.

 

What is your take on the current “results agenda” according to which donors are urging to show clear, measurable and fast results and hence, “value for the tax payers money”.

‘Value for money’ is the talk of the day. Results-based management is, at first glance, a no-brainer. Who could argue against achieving results? But a closer look quickly reveals that the debate is more complex and needs a degree of nuance. The argument about ‘value for money’ is based on the strong belief in the measurability of performance. Yet it remains extremely difficult to assess performance in an objective and impartial way. After more than two decades of ‘results-based management’ the methodology remains questionable and its conclusions are not without unintended consequences. Wrong assumptions often underlie measurement, measurement errors are rife, and the choice and number of measurements is a matter of debate. In many cases, it is actually unclear what is actually being measured. Not surprisingly, a ‘performance paradox’ occurs – whereby a weak correlation exists between performance measurement and actual performance. All this has recently come to the fore again when DFID issued its ‘Multilateral Aid Review’ (March 2011). It rates 43 multilateral bodies as either ‘very good’, ‘good’, ‘adequate’ or ‘poor’. In the foreword, the Secretary of State for International Development claims that the assessment is ‘rigorous and robust’. It would have been more appropriate to use the words ‘arbitrary and subjective’. The assessment is based more on theory, judgments, qualitative data, and impressions than on objective observations. Most of the limitations are duly recognized in the report but ultimately the report handles them as follows: “Caveats aside, the charts below show how the multilateral organizations scored against our indices”. In other words, DFID will not let complexity stop itself from determining whether these multilateral institutions are achieving ‘value for money’. This is little different from Transocean Ltd. which gave its top executives bonuses in 2010 for achieving the "best year in safety performance in our company's history" – despite the explosion of an oil rig that killed 11 people and the largest oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that year. Just as Transocean arbitrarily determined what 'safety performance' meant, so can a particular donor determine what ‘value for money’ is generated by a multilateral body. I have no objection to selectivity; it is the sovereign right of any bilateral donor to fund or not to fund a particular organization. But that is a political decision. I object to presenting such political decisions under the false pretence of ‘rigorous and robust’ science; when in fact it is pseudo-science. The tragedy is these unscientific scores will have major consequences on the funding of multilateral bodies far beyond DFID. Finally, it is disappointing that the UN agencies have not responded collectively to such ratings by exposing their subjectivity and arbitrariness. In the context of the ‘One UN’, this could be an indicator of how far the concept of ‘Delivering as One’ has been internalized within the various UN entities. Sadly, no common stance has been taken so far by the UN on DFID’s Multilateral Aid Review.

 

How do you see the Development Agenda – beyond 2015?

The content and the structure of the post-2015 framework are subject to intense debate. While this is a welcome development, it is the process by which the post-MDG framework will be formulated that is critically important because it will shape the final outcome. Two points must be made here. First, the main aim of the MDGs was to rescue the Millennium Declaration from oblivion. The purpose of the post-MDG framework is totally different. The latter is to generate a synoptic version of an international development agenda fit for today’s world. The degrees of freedom are thus larger now than a decade ago when we put the MDGs together. Second, the discussions about the post-MDG agenda have already started within several donor agencies. In the absence of similar debates in developing countries, the default scenario at the UN General Assembly in 2015 would be the adoption of a donor-centric post-MDG framework. Another exercise in donorship is neither necessary nor desirable. If the global debate is to be one among equals, then both parties must come equally well prepared to the global forum. We suggest, therefore, that the UN promotes a national debate in several developing countries about the merits and demerits of the MDGs and what their reincarnation should look like – from the perspective of the country-level. South-led debates, which are currently lacking, would foster a more participatory and bottom-up review of the existing framework than what is happening in donor countries. Once the two perspectives – from the donor side and the country level – are equally well exposed and documented, then it is likely that the global debate on the post-MDG agenda will be balanced so as to yield an enhanced outcome.