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World leaders are now racing against time to meet the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs) target by 2015. The MDG are a set of targets
officially established following the Millennium Summit of the United
Nations in 2000.
Those targets include halving extreme poverty, achieving universal
primary education, promoting gender equality, reducing child mortality,
improving maternal health, combating HIV/AIDS and other diseases,
ensuring environmental sustainability and developing a global partnership
for development.
Today, less than two years before the 2015 deadline, the gaps remain.
According to the 2012 UN MDG progress chart, in five of the eight goals,
there are still some areas in particular regions where no progress has
occurred. In general, however, at the global level, progress is
undeniable. The percentage of the population living on less than US$1.25
a day was 46 percent in 1990, in 2005 it was only 27 percent.
A target of 23 percent in 2015 seems certain. The percentage of the
population with access to improved water sources was already 84 percent
in 2008, very close to the target of 85.5 percent in 2015. In other
areas, progress, to a lesser extent, is also apparent.
Despite much skepticism at the start over the effectiveness of the global
goals, the global attention and the resources directed to the MDGs are
proof that humankind can at least agree on and work toward some common
goals. Without MDGs, the world today would not have been a better
place.
A world with a globally-unified set of goals like MDGs is better than
without it for at least three reasons. First, even though we live in a
resource-constrained world where trade-offs are inevitable, focus and
concentration on particular doable objectives are rare commodities among
our political leaders. The MDGs exclude many other important aspects of
development, yet they can focus on what is urgent. Second, it is common
practice in national development policies where despite stated strong commitments
to particular objectives, progress is not achieved due to a lack of
measurable and quantifiable targets. The MDGs are very clear with targets
and indicators. Third, global goals are more immune to nation-state
political cycles that tend to be less forward-looking.
The development agenda of course will not
end in 2015. The gaps in the progress of achieving MDGs still need to be
filled in and more resources should be mobilized to address certain areas
and regions where the gaps are the widest. However, old targets should
also be improved. One aspect of improvement, among others, is the
standard of poverty. The $1.25 per day extreme poverty line is very far
from a tipping point of income above which all aspects of life are
considered decent.
To escape from this predefined extreme poverty does not guarantee an
improved life with dignity. It is barely survival living. We should start
thinking of increasing the standard to $2 per day. Today, still more than
half of the world’s population lives on less than $2 per day. In
addition, dimensions of poverty should also be broadened beyond income
poverty.
The key to poverty reduction is employment opportunity. The MDG target of
universal primary enrollment does not guarantee improved livelihoods as
having a primary education does not necessarily increase employment
opportunities in many parts of the world. In gender issues, it is also
hard to imagine a world without gender discrimination where more half
than of the population still live on less than $2 per day.
Parents with such financial constraints will naturally send their boys,
rather than girls, to school beyond primary education. This is not only a
gender issue; it is a loss in potential economic productivity. Future
development agendas beyond 2015 should address these issues more
explicitly.
What was not explicitly-addressed in the MDGs, yet its urgency has
increased recently, is inequality. Today, more than two-thirds of the
world’s population live in countries where income inequality has risen
since 1980. A recent Asian Development Bank report estimates that in most
countries in Asia, the wealthiest 5 percent of the population account for
20 percent of total expenditure. The Gini coefficient, a standard measure
of income inequality, in China increased to 0.43 in 2010, from 0.32 in
the early 1990s. For India, the figure rose to 0.37 from 0.33 during the
same period.
In Indonesia it jumped to 0.39 from 0.29. From 2009 to 2011, the Gini
coefficient increased from 0.37 to 0.41, the highest ever recorded in
Indonesian history. Inequality is not only bad for economic growth, it
also reduces social cohesion.
In an attempt to address inequality in the post-2015 development agenda,
two issues should be considered.
First, we should distinguish between inequality of outcome and inequality
of opportunity. Borrowing a theory by a renowned philosopher, John Roemer
of Yale University, inequality of outcome such as income among members of
a society is not only a product of the inequality of effort or talent
among individuals but also inequality in circumstances beyond the control
of the particular individuals. Unlike policies of equalizing outcome,
policies of equalizing opportunity by giving support to individuals with
less conducive circumstances to level the playing field is more
acceptable across different political spectrum, from left to right.
Second, equality of opportunity policies can be mainstreamed across
different set of goals in the post 2015 development agenda more
explicitly. For example, in allocating public spending on education, an
equality of opportunity policy to be made explicit in the development
goals, would allocate more money to particular members of a society with
less favorable circumstances rather than the other way around.
Today in Indonesia, for example, public spending on secondary and
higher education benefits the rich rather than the poor. This would be
inconsistent with an equality of opportunity policy. This can be applied
across all areas of development agendas. Equality of opportunity then
should be the “currency” of the post-2015 development agenda if humankind
agrees that the world beyond 2015 should be one with more prosperity as
well as justice. ●
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