1. What will it cost to achieve MDG-1
Michiel A. Keyzer
Centre for World Food Studies (SOW-VU)
Amsterdam

2. Background Millennium declaration, September 2000
MDGs to be reached in 2015
Financial requirements within reach of donors:
“can do” message good for public support
Well-defined list of targets helps donor coordination
2002
2006
2010
2015
Total ODA 65
135
152
195
Increase over commitments 48 50 74

3. Questions How realistic are the estimates?
Are the necessary mechanism in place to monitor their achievements?
Do proposed measures promote sustainable growth?

4. (1) Estimates: procedure
Define “shopping list of targets”
Apply costing of targets for selected countries
Derive per capita totals (US$ 77.5 in 2006; US$ in 2015)
Add estimated financing needs for middle-income countries and global actions
Calculate total financing needs
Assume share of domestic financing
Calculate required ODA in billions of US$

5. (1) Estimates: what is overlooked
Actual budgeting omits many items
Health
Malaria (US$ 0.1–9 per patient depending on resistance)
Leprosy (US$ per patient)
Infrastructure
Telecommunications
Security along transport routes
Upgrading ports, secondary roads, storage facilities
Irrigation schemes
Education
buildings, materials
Upscaling of number of teachers

6. (1) Estimates: general comments
Constancy of prices neglects upward push from intensified use of scarce resources
Engineers
Teachers to “teach the teachers”
Interconnections are ignored
Expansion of rural health system requires expansion rural infrastructure
Universal education requires buildings and infrastructure
Optimistic view on quality of governance
Explicit exclusion of countries that have “unwilling” government
Investment in local governments not explivitly included in budgets

7. (2) Measurement of achievement
Indicators for MDG-1
Proportion of population below $1 (PPP) per day
Poverty gap ratio [incidence x depth of poverty]
Share of poorest quintile in national consumption
Prevalence of underweight children under-five years of age
Proportion of population below minimum level of dietary energy consumption

8. (2) Case: number of undernourished people in Sub-Saharan Africa

9. (3) MDGs and sustainable development
Shopping list approach ignores lessons from Asia
Growth solution to poverty
15 years too short to see full results
Growth starts in growth poles: strong urban areas
Spreading through migration and relocation of production
Government which is crucial for growth as well as for provision of social safety nets, not part of the costs
Governance is important but cannot be scaled up at will

10. (3) MDGs and sustainable development (cont’d) Governance and donor involvement
Insist of respect of human rights and fight corruption
But stop treating governance as a simple moral entity measured as an index on the scale from bad to good
Take it seriously as a field with definite technological relationships, to the understanding of which research can contribute
Use this knowledge in development policy
Focus on strength, economic as well as institutional
Do not fight bad governance everywhere
Stay in the background:
Give maximum exposure to local leaders, both in success and in failure
MDG realization will primarily depend on their capacities to govern
Governance needs non-tradable inputs, such as the authority and respect for local leaders, that have to accumulate locally on the basis of own success and cannot accumulate at will

11. Summing up
Clear list of targets may be effective in mobilizing public support
However:
Shopping list approach has danger of omissions of items and of interrelations
Lessons from Asia, rapidly growing from near-hopeless situation 30 years ago, are ignored
Aid could undermine rather than promote good governance

12. Asian drama
30 years ago… …and present