Lessons from the Millennium Development Goals for the Post 2015 Development Agenda

Abstract

The eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), ranging from halving extreme poverty rate to developing a global partnership for development will expire in 2015. Discussions on achievable goals for its next 15-year global development agenda (post 2015 development agenda) have been active and intensified. While significant progress has been made across Goals with some targets already having been met in some regions ahead of 2015, there has been “the unfinished business of the MDGs” toward which the international community needs to improve and enhance their approach. In addition, MDGs have not been able to tackle a set of issues that have been emerged or worsened for the past 10-15 years, including the issue of disparity and inequality within the regions and countries, chronicle poverty and vulnerability. In order to “end poverty in all its forms everywhere” which is likely to be set as the first goal of the post 2015 develop agenda, the international community will have to deal with those issues.

This article discusses what MDGs targets have been met and what goals been slow advancing and in what regions. Then this examines the issue of disability, as a symbol of the issue left behind, which has been overlooked in international development despite of the fact that its correlation with poverty ratio is high.