From MDGs to SDGs: are we on the right track? Jan Vandemoortele Formerly with UNICEF, UNDP and ILO, co-architect of the MDGS

SDG-process Participation and consultation Areas of concern Link between global goals and national targets 3

☞ no meaningful conclusion MDGs in retrospect No counterfactual, no clear attribution ☞ no meaningful conclusion Helped to demystify ‘development’ for general public, journalists, teachers Striving vs. achieving (target=streefcijfer) Unintended consequences

The tyranny of an acronym Divided world Weak leadership Old world view Parochialism 5

Technical perspective SDGs use mostly absolute benchmarks They mix collective with country-specific targets Their feasibility or level of ambition varies Maternal mortality U5MR Underweight 6 6

Political perspective Inequality

? SDGs’ basis premise is: “Poverty eradication is the greatest global challenge ” + LNOB First among 169: ‘by 2030, eradicate extreme poverty for all people everywhere, currently measured as people living on less than $1.25 a day’ 8

“The most important problem we are facing now, today, is rising inequality” Robert Shiller (2013) “Growing inequality is one of the biggest social, economic and political challenges of our time” (2012) “…societies are increasingly under pressure from rising income inequality” (WEF) 9

Goal 10: Reduce inequality within and among countries ! Goal 10: Reduce inequality within and among countries Not about inequality 10.1: By 2030, progressively achieve and sustain income growth of the bottom 40 per cent of the population at a rate higher than the national average “one of the themes of this book is that we need to consider the distribution as a whole” 11 11

Political perspective Inequality Universality

Ending hunger is not a universal target; it does not concern most OECD countries

If overweight and obesity were included, it would make goal 2 universal. Why do the SDGs not mention them? Is it due to an oversight? Or are rich countries not ready to commit to specific performance targets? Or is it that the food industry lobbied successfully?

SDGs ≠ universal agenda SDGs ≠ equity agenda Yet, many claim they do represent an universal agenda that addresses inequality. Why? Answer: “A reliable way to make people believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition, because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth”

SDGs: next steps At country level select and adapt targets that are most relevant to national context At global level address issue of aggregation for global monitoring use Palma ratio to track target 10.1, to fix its faulty formulation shift focus from targets 1.1 (end poverty) and 2.1 (end hunger) to target 1.2 16 16

Target 1.2 By 2030, reduce at least by half the proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions according to national definitions Shifting the focus on this universal target will require persistence and affirmative action UN to establish public register of national definitions now; to avoid they get changed later, so as to claim the country met the target 17 17