1. Brooks World Poverty Institute University of Manchester
Could the Post-2015 Development Agenda Promote Poverty Eradication as an International Social Norm?
David Hulme
Brooks World Poverty Institute
University of Manchester

2. Introduction
Contemporary policy focus on monitoring MDGs and Post-2015 Development Agenda
Returning to Hulme & Fukuda-Parr (BWPI 96)
Did the MDGs promote the ‘end of poverty’ as a social norm…the moral unacceptability of extreme poverty in an affluent world?
Abolishing slavery, anti-apartheid, rules of war
Norm emergence, cascade and internalization

3. The UN MDGs Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education
Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women
Goal 4: Reduce child mortality
Goal 5: Improve maternal health
Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability
Goal 8: Develop a Global Partnership for Development
‘Human development meets results-based management in an imperfect world’

4. MDGs Contribution to Poverty Eradication?
MDGs only weakly related to ‘MDGs achievement’ in monitoring exercises-China!
Very difficult to assess – history, other factors, multiple criteria and scales
My judgement – small net contribution but NOT transformational (Millennium Moment)
Good news – aid volumes, UK, EU
Bad news – aid-driven, BWI-PRSPs, US…BRICs

5. The Framing of the MDGs
Framed by aid/development agencies as a planning/managing tool
Sachs and the UN Millennium Project – high modernism: experts solve poverty problem
Neglect of re-shaping public attitudes and mobilising grassroots political support
Two main exceptions to this – Millennium Campaign and GCAP… both flawed ?

6. The Post-2015 Development Agenda
Burst into life 2012 – lots of activity now especially UN HLP Report and SDGs
Different from the MDG process
A relatively clear UN process – ‘rules of the game’
Key players - aid industry plus sustainability group (Brazil and LA) plus Africa growth group
Content – everything, even governance and inequality)
Sustainability + poverty reduction + growth…presented as win/win (not trade-offs)

7. Post-2015 DA: Who is Missing?
I think there are two big omissions
Great/emerging powers – US, China, India.
Not a big issue for them or on the side-lines?
2. Civil society
Grassroots contributions are consultative not engaging or mobilising – UN-guided national consultations; Beyond 2015; Southern Voices; PARTICIPATE

8. Post-2015 DA: the consequences?
Very professional and structured processes: shows ‘the people’ have been consulted and produces polished documents and counter-documents…but NOT public engagement
Danger of repeating the MDG experience.
Producing a complex/technical list for political and professional elites…not a narrative or a norm that actively engages civil society in poor, emerging and rich countries

9. Post-2015 DA: What to do?
A partial conclusion – this is where you all come in with your ideas. How to seize the opportunity of 2015 as a [big?] step forward in the historical evolution of anti-poverty (global justice) rather than a well-staged international compromise for policy elites.

10. Post-2015 DA: What to do?
ASAP – university campuses and student social media across the world on Oct ?
CSOs/NGOs/trade unions – could they engage or too professional/dis-embedded/self-serving?
Faiths – central for anti-slavery and end of apartheid…cross-faith action?
Celebrities – wrong messengers or useful for key events (like Geldof and Band Aid 1985 in UK)?
Change the message – focus on global and national inequality. A message for all countries (US, China, India, UK etc) not ‘us’ and ‘them’?

11. Conclusion
My conclusion is the easy part – it looks likely that, unless something impacts the Post-2015 Development Agenda process, we shall get a technically improved set of global goals that does not engage the public nor contribute much to the creation of an international social norm to end poverty…great rhetoric but little pressure for action or accountability
We can debate this conclusion but most of all I would like to debate with you about - ‘what to do – how to make ending poverty an international social norm for an affluent world’

12. Readings 1
R Wilkinson and D Hulme (2012) The Millennium Development Goals and Beyond: Global Development after 2015, London, Routledge
D Hulme (2010) Global Poverty: How Global Governance is Failing the Poor, (pp.246). London and New York, Routledge
A Greig, D Hulme and M Turner (2007) Challenging Global Inequality: the Theory and Practice of Development in the Twenty-First Century, (pp296). London, Palgrave (with A. Greig and M. Turner)

13. Readings 2
D Hulme (2009), ‘Global Poverty Reduction and the Millennium Development Goals: A Short History of the World's Biggest Promise,’ Brooks World Poverty Institute Working Paper 100, University of Manchester
S Fukuda-Parr and D Hulme (2011) ‘International norm dynamics and the “end of poverty”: understanding the Millennium Development Goals’, Global Governance 17(1), pp (download as BWPI Working Paper 96)