This is a joint post with Ted Collins.
Since the UN’s post-2015 development agenda focuses on prioritizing progress in poorer countries, you’d hope that developing country institutions would be heavily involved. But are they?
The Millennium Development Goal of universal primary-school completion has been successful. By 2011, 90 percent of countries had already met the goal; only 19 of 212 countries are unlikely to meet it by 2015.
The UN is gearing up for discussions about what international development goals should come after the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which expire in 2015. My guest on this week’s Wonkcast is CGD senior fellow Charles Kenny, who recently published a working paper, written jointly with CGD visiting fellow Andy Sumner, that assesses the impact of the MDGs and offers suggestions for what should come next.
New York City’s annual high level UN bash is an occasion for grand, development-related announcements and commitments. This year’s meeting, which took place last week, focused on the Prevention and Control of Non-communicable diseases (NCDs), but I was particularly pleased to see follow up from one of last year’s big announcements--the Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health. Following its launch at last year’s UN Leaders’ Summit for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 2010, the strategy inspired over $40 billion in financial commitments, aiming “to save the lives of 16 million women and children by 2015.” This year, on September 20th, the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (PMNCH) released its one-year assessment of progress under this strategy.
Leaders from around the world meet in New York City next week to review progress towards the Millennium Development Goals, a list of development targets set in 2000, after a decade of UN conferences and summits, for achievement by 2015.
Which countries are leading the pack on achieving the Millennium Development Goals? My guest this week is CGD research fellow Ben Leo. In a new working paper, Ben lays out an index for measuring country-level progress towards the MDGs. His paper, the first to offer comparative country-level rankings of progress towards key MDG-related indicators, finds some surprising trailblazers.
A few weeks ago, I wrote with excitement about what the G8 and G20 might mean for global health.