Journal of International Development

J. Int. Dev. 21, 834–843 (2009)

Published online in Wiley InterScience
(www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/jid.1621

AFTER 2015: WHAT ARE THE INGREDIENTS

OF AN ‘MDG-PLUS’ AGENDA FOR
POVERTY REDUCTION?
ANDY SUMNER1* and MEERA TIWARI2
1
University of Sussex, Brighton, UK
2
University of East London, UK

Abstract: The United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), for better or worse,
have played a major role in focusing development policy since their original incarnation in the
1990s. Some development agencies have gone as far as to judge the value of all their activities
on the contribution to achieving the MDGs. This paper asks how is the context for poverty
reduction changing, what has been the impact of the MDG paradigm to date, and what, if
anything should replace the MDGs in 2015 as a policy focus (or foci) or paradigm. The paper is
based on the authors’ own ideas and draws upon the presentations and background papers from
the ‘After 2015’ panel held at the DSA 2008 conference. Copyright # 2009 John Wiley &
Sons, Ltd.

Keywords: MDGs; poverty; paradigms; 2015

1 INTRODUCTION

This paper and the accompanying panel at the DSA conference were triggered by the
temporal closeness to the 2015 ‘line in the sand’ or the target year for the UN poverty
targets, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The MDGs, for better or worse, have
played a major role in focusing development policy since their original incarnation in
the 1990s and some development agencies, such as DFID, have gone as far as to judge the
value of all their activities on the contribution to achieving the MDGs.
Shouldn’t we focus on meeting the MDGs and mitigating the impacts of the global
economic crisis rather than discuss what will happen after the 2015 target date for the goals?
One result of the economic crisis is that ‘business as usual’ is unlikely to continue. And as
2015 approaches, there will be more room to rethink international development in terms of

*Correspondence to: Andy Sumner, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton, BN1 9RE,
UK. E-mail: a.sumner@ids.ac.uk

Copyright # 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

 After 2015 835

what, if anything, might form an ‘MDG-plus’ agenda. The question of how to proceed post-
2015 will likely emerge on the agenda at the United Nation’s MDG þ 10 conference in 2010.
In light of the above, this paper asks how is the context for poverty reduction changing,
what has been the impact of the MDG paradigm to date, and what, if anything should
replace the MDGs in 2015 as a policy focus (or foci) or paradigm. This paper is based on
the authors’ own ideas and draws upon two presentations at the DSA conference panel, by
Charles Gore, Coordinator of Research and Policy Analysis on Africa at UNCTAD and
Christine Allison, Head of Policy, Plan International, and a set of background papers
written for the conference panel (Fennell, 2008; Fischer, 2008; Gulrajani, 2008; Sumner,
2008; Sumner and Tiwari, 2008).
This paper is structured as follows. Section 2 outlines some of the features of the
changing context for poverty reduction. Section 3 is concerned with the evolving
discussion on the impact of the MDG paradigm to date. Section 4 looks to the future and
reviews some of the ideas generated recently for changes to the development paradigm by
Collier, Easterly and Sachs before turning to the discussion at the DSA ‘After 2015’
conference panel. Section 5 concludes.

2 HOW IS THE CONTEXT FOR POVERTY REDUCTION CHANGING?

The current global context for poverty reduction is one of global recession, uncertainty and
many on-going changes in policy and situations—in short, of multiple and inter-linked
crises, with potentially large adverse impacts on poverty.
Only 12–18 months ago the MDGs looked on-track globally (although way off in most
of Sub-Saharan Africa and parts of South Asia). Progress towards MDG 1 on income and
food poverty (reducing numbers living under a dollar-a-day and under-nutrition
respectively) is, of course, linked to economic growth and to food prices to some
considerable extent. Globally, it was looking hopeful but slowing growth is now raising
serious questions, in particular slowing growth in China and India. For the many African
countries that were already off track, the picture is simply much worse.
MDGs 2, 3, 4 and 5, covering education, health and gender, are all highly dependent on
public expenditures and often on aid flows. Prospects were mixed pre-crisis but now the
risks are of a crisis-induced squeezing of public expenditures in developing countries (as
tax revenues fall) and of shrinking of aid budgets. There is also the cost of bail outs in terms
of higher taxes and lower public expenditures at some point in the future.
Looking further forward into the future we can map a range of major global processes
in terms of demography, climate change and technology (see discussion and tentative
mapping of such issues in Sumner, 2008). The evolving context for poverty reduction is
likely to be a world which is more uncertain, more complex and more global and within
which understandings of poverty itself are evolving.
The global financial crisis has demonstrated the extent of North-South, East-West global
inter-connectedness. As Saith (2007) has argued, the MDGs ghettoise ‘development’ as
something that happens in the South i.e. to the ‘poor’. What about ‘development’ beyond
developing countries, i.e. in the North, and/or the inter-connectedness of poverty and
wealth, vulnerability and risk in North and South?
Many development problems, notably the current economic crisis, are the preserve
neither of the North nor the South, and, given international migration, well-being in North
and South is increasingly connected via transnational identities and remittances. Finally,

Copyright # 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Int. Dev. 21, 834–843 (2009)
DOI: 10.1002/jid
836 A. Sumner and M. Tiwari

given that many of the uncertainties are problems of North and South alike (climate change
and security/conflict/terrorism for example), addressing them also requires North-South
collaboration. Poverty reduction would be just one of several systemic inter-related global
issues (see discussion in Sumner and Tiwari, 2009).
The global financial crisis has also demonstrated the increasing complexity of that global
inter-connectedness. A body of ideas that has emerged in development research is loosely
called Complexity Science or Complex Adaptive Thinking or (Soft) Systems thinking (see
for discussion Rihani, 2002; Ramalingam et al., 2008). These ideas imply rethinking
poverty reduction in terms of assumptions on the linearity of cause and effect of policy
interventions and giving greater emphasis to inter-relationships and juxtapositions
producing co-evolving processes and outcomes in a diversity of pathways and contexts. For
example, rural livelihoods are likely to be highly non-linear due to the interface of
increasingly uncertain changes in social and physical systems as a result of climate change.
The context for poverty reduction is—of course—influenced by prevailing under-
standings of poverty itself. There are currently a wide range of indicators initiatives (such
as the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative, the ESRC Well-being and
Development Research Group and the OECD’s Measuring Progress Project). The ferment
of activity suggests our current approach to development indicators needs rethinking.
Indeed, the June 2007 OECD Istanbul Declaration committed governments to develop
locally defined poverty and human well-being indicators.
The global financial crisis has further demonstrated the relationship between material
well-being and ill-being and non-material factors—for example, (in)security, vulnerabi-
lity, risk and psychological well-being—and the importance of relational well-being in
times of crisis. The MDGs emphasise development as poverty reduction in largely material
terms.
A ‘Human Well-being’ lens is emerging as a complement to the more traditional and material
ways of thinking about poverty and ill-being. It extends attention from what people can do and
be and adds how people feel about what they can do and be (see for discussion on concepts,
methods and indicators, McGregor, 2007; Samman, 2007). This implies new types of poverty
reduction policy emphases that seek to influence how people think and behave (take for example
public information campaigns on schooling and feeding girls in Bangladesh).
This would suggest poverty reduction policy would move beyond material provision
(public expenditure, growth, etc.) into areas in which policy intervention is considered at
best highly controversial—values, relationships, norms and behaviour. Yet, it is this line of
thinking that underpins the recent popularity in behavioural economics books such as
Ariely’s (Ariely, 2008) Predictably Irrational and Thaler and Sunstein’s (2008) Nudge.
Finally, the global financial crisis has demonstrated the increasing importance of
equitable and responsive governance—political governance and market governance.
There is a revived interest in self or endogenously defined development evident in the focus
on well-being and derived from that a revival of interest in politics and governance and in
the concept of ‘voice’ in decision making. This resurgence of interest in politics raises the
issues of the inter-connectedness of the ‘poor’ or those with ill-being and the ‘rich’ or those
with well-being and the inter-connection of South/East–North/West.
Research focused on explanation of individual deprivation often does not study the
politics (i.e. the social relations and inequality in power, voice, governance and ultimately
wealth). In short, studying poverty is not the same as studying the poor and the processes of
development are inherently social and political processes. Harriss (2006: 5) sums this up as
follows:

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DOI: 10.1002/jid
 After 2015 837

‘. . . the way in which poverty is conceptualised separates it from the social processes
of the accumulation and distribution of wealth, which depoliticises it—and
depoliticisation is of course a profoundly political intellectual act’.

If we take these themes as some of the key drivers of a changing context for poverty
reduction—increased uncertainty and global inter-connectedness, greater complexity,
well-being beyond solely material domains of human life—we can ask what impact have
the MDGs had to date and what if anything should replace the MDGs as a foci or
development paradigm?

3 WHAT HAS BEEN THE IMPACT OF THE MDG PARADIGM TO DATE?

As we move closer to 2015, interest in reviewing the impact of the MDGs has risen
(see for example, Saith, 2007; Manning, 2009; Fukuda-Parr 2008, Hulme 2008). A
key issue has been to determine what exactly to assess in terms of impacts. Should
we be looking at the impacts of the MDGs on the international development discourse
itself, or in terms of changes in policy or in resource allocations? And how can we
assess the impacts in countries that focus on core MDG concerns, but simply do not
label them as such? India and China, for example, have sought to address such concerns in
their national development strategies for many years. Researchers are certainly collecting a
lot more data on poverty. The MDGs and results-based management have played a role in
this, albeit with regard to the dimensions of poverty that were dominant in the late 1990s,
such as education and health rather than ‘newer’ dimensions identified in participatory
poverty assessment initiatives such as risk, vulnerability, voice and governance.
Manning’s MDG assessment (2009: 24) proposes three ways to assess the impact of the
MDGs:
(i) Whether the MDG paradigm has led to increased attention to those areas which it covers;
(ii) Whether increased attention has led to any observable changes in the allocation of
resources or the policy framework;
(iii) Whether increased allocation of resources or changes in the policy framework have
led to any observable changes in results.

Manning (2009: 24) notes that the impact of the MDGs on the international discourse has
been ‘strong, and significantly stronger than previous attempts to use indicator sets to
highlight issues (such as the ‘Development Decades’ or the various initiatives for Least
Developed and Small Island countries)’. The evidence Manning cites for this is the follow
up in the international community, for example in terms of MDG reports, high level events
and G8 discussions. As Watkins (2008) concurs,
There is little question that the MDG targets have made a difference. The targets have
provided a moral compass and a set of yardsticks for measuring progress. National
governments, multilateral development banks, and bilateral donors have all scaled-
up and strengthened the monitoring of progress towards the MDGs. More than that,
they have placed poverty reduction at the centre of the international development
agenda, helping to stimulate more rapid expansion of access to basic health,
education and wider goals.

Copyright # 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Int. Dev. 21, 834–843 (2009)
DOI: 10.1002/jid
838 A. Sumner and M. Tiwari
However, there is a more mixed picture in terms of donors’ statements and national
development strategies such as PRSPs. Fukuda-Parr’s (2008) review of the policy
statements of 21 bilateral donor members of the OECD DAC and 22 PRSPs covering 22
developing countries, argues that for donors, the MDGs and addressing multi-dimensional
poverty is central, but in a somewhat uneven way. For example, there is very limited
attention to maternal mortality and child survival.
In terms of impacts at a national level, beyond donors, the Fukuda-Parr review found that
all the PRSPs reviewed stated a commitment to the MDGs but with an emphasis on
economic growth and social spending and neglect of hunger and nutrition. One issue raised
is whether the ‘take up’ of MDGs simply reflects donor-country relationships in aid-
dependent countries or whether there is a real sense of ‘local ownership’.
In a number of countries there is some real sense of local adaptation of the MDGs. In
some cases a locally defined MDG has been added (MDG9s in Afghanistan, Albania,
Azerbaijan, Benin, Bhutan, Cambodia, Cook Islands, Kenya, Kosovo, Mongolia and Viet
Nam). It is interesting that these additional goals often relate to those ‘missing’ or ‘newer’
dimensions of poverty noted above. For example, risk and vulnerability, in particular
relating to decent or non-hazardous work and security. They also often relate to governance
and voice, and in particular to human rights and democracy.
In sum, levels of impact are particularly related to the use of the MDGs for planning in
donors but also to ‘local ownership’ of the MDGs in different countries, which might be
defined at three levels as follows:
High: Evidence of local MDGs developed or being developed;

Medium: Evidence in national development strategy or PRSP or budgetary processes

or documents of MDGs explicitly in indicators or by name (see Fukuda-Parr, 2008);

Low: No or little evidence of MDG local ownership.

The impact of the MDGs is, of course, likely to differ across countries. Further we need
to consider ‘ownership’ beyond national governments and with citizens and civil society.
The UN Millennium Campaign and the Global Call to Action Against Poverty are of
significance here. It would be useful to know how and why countries differed and what
factors determine local ownership of MDGs in terms of actors and networks and political
contexts and institutions. At this stage, what can we say on the impacts of the MDGs thus
far? Manning (2009: 11) sums up thus:
The MDGs have become a prime point of reference in UN and other international
discourse about the progress of development, and have been visible to different
degrees at national level in both donor and developing countries.

Research is tentatively emerging on the impact of the MDGs but it is at an early stage.
More is needed to assess the impact and inform discussions on what happens after 2015.

4 WHAT, IF ANYTHING, SHOULD REPLACE THE MDGS AS A FOCUS OR

A DEVELOPMENT PARADIGM?

This section looks to the future in terms of what happens after 2015. It reviews some
of the ideas generated recently for changes to the development paradigm by Collier,

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 After 2015 839

Table 1. Collier, Easterly and Sachs: new meta-narratives?

Point of departure Form of travel Point of arrival

Collier Conflict trap; natural resource Governance (international Raised incomes

trap; landlocked trap; and bad
governance trap
Easterly Focus on planning has been
the problem. Aid to date has
harmed countries. Failure is
due to weak accountability
Sachs A poverty trap; a physical
geography trap; a fiscal trap;
a governance trap; cultural
barriers; a geopolitics trap;
an innovation trap; and a
demographic trap
charters and laws) and (which will lead to
globalisation (trade broader poverty reduction)
protectionism under
certain conditions)
Support searchers—innovative Innovation- and
individuals who find novel endogenously-led
solutions and ‘get things done’. development
Create incentives and markets
for searchers. We need home
grown initiatives
Aid for agriculture inputs, The MDGs
investments in basic health,
investments in education, power,
transport and communication
services, safe water and sanitation

Easterly and Sachs before turning to the discussion at the DSA ‘After 2015’ conference
panel.

4.1 Collier, Easterly and Sachs

Over the last few years, there has been some re-emergence of the grand- or meta-narrative
in approaches to development. The most publicised have been those of Paul Collier, Jeffrey
Sachs and William Easterly but one might also add Alice Amsden, Ha-Joon Chang, Dani
Rodrik, Wolfgang Sachs and Joseph Stiglitz to the list. Each author has presented some
kind of diagnosis of the ‘problem’ of (mal) ‘development’ and suggested entry points with
most leverage for (good) change (see Table 1).
For Collier (2007), the core problem is 58 (unnamed) countries that are ‘falling behind
and often falling apart’ (p. 3). He argues the MDGs focus is misleading because 80 per cent
of the world’s poor live in countries which are making progress. We should be concerned
with the bottom billion who live in the 58 countries. These countries are afflicted by one or
more of four interlocking development traps: a conflict trap (especially civil war), a natural
resource trap—abundance of which makes ‘democracy malfunction’ (p. 42), a landlocked
with bad neighbours trap—in the sense of poor markets—‘If you are coastal, you serve the
world; if you are landlocked, you serve your neighbours’ (p. 57) and a bad governance in a
small country trap. What should we do? We should focus on those 58 poor countries (low
income, fragile states, etc.) not poor people and focus on growth not the MDGs (p. 11). In
sum, for Collier, the answer is more instruments and a focus on fewer countries. What
matters is growth (more attention), governance (international charters and laws) and
globalisation (trade protectionism under certain conditions).
For Easterly (2007), the sub-title of his book says it all—Why the West’s efforts to aid the
rest have done so much ill and so little good. Easterly focuses on aid and argues that not
only has aid done little good it has actually harmed developing countries. Aid has removed
incentives for poor states to innovate and find their own solutions. Aid has been bad
because of its focus on planning (e.g. PRSPs) and its support to governments which

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840 A. Sumner and M. Tiwari

are often undemocratic, inefficient and corrupt. The alternative is to support ‘searchers’
(rather than support planners). Searchers are innovative individuals who find novel
solutions and ‘get things done’. Incentives and markets for searchers need to be enhanced.
This might all look somewhat simplistic: entrepreneurs versus bureaucrats or markets
versus state. For many, Easterly appears nihilistic and fails to recognise any evidence of
progress.
For Sachs (2005), the narrative is an extension of the UN Millennium Project (2005).
The goal is the achievement of growth and the MDGs via large aid investments from the
North to the South in a ‘big push’. The focus is on ‘quick wins’ and targeting programmes
to the poor. Sachs offers a different set of traps as to why countries are poor (2005: 56–61)
including a poverty trap (the poor are too poor to save for the future and accumulate
capital), a physical geography trap (similar to Collier), a fiscal trap (limited government
resources), a governance trap/failure, cultural barriers (notably on rights and gender
inequality), a geopolitics trap (as a result of trade barriers), a constraining of innovation
trap (due to small markets and weak incentives), and a demographic trap (as a result of high
fertility).
In short, poverty is a result of a lack of savings, the absence of trade opportunities (due to
geography), technological reversal, natural resource decline, adverse productivity shocks,
and population growth (ibid: 54–55). The solutions include (ibid.: 233–234) agriculture
inputs, investments in basic health, investments in education, power, transport and
communication services, safe water and sanitation). This being the basis of the UNMP, the
Millennium Villages Project and the Global Fund for HIV/AIDS. More recently, Sachs in
Common Wealth (2008) has ambitiously set out plans for action on climate change, growth,
trade, diseases, population and biodiversity based on the experiments in the Millennium
Villages pilot projects.
These narratives are useful and have certainly provoked a new sense of discussion and
reflection on ‘development’ to date. However, do any of the above narratives fit with a more
uncertain, more complex and more global world?
Haddad (2008: 3) drawing on Mead’s (2007) God and Gold: Britain, America and the
Making of the Modern World, critically argues there is actually one meta-narrative under-
writing Collier and the others, and that is what Mead called the ‘Whig Narrative’ or an
Anglo-Saxon concept of history as certainty, as irresistible capitalist progress under the
guidance of ‘invisible hand’ rationality.
The DSA conference panel offered some different kinds of discussions.

4.2 The DSA Conference Panel on ‘After 2015’

At the DSA conference panel discussion the view was more global in outlook and much
more was said about a more fundamental rethink of development. Gore argued at the DSA
conference in his presentation and elsewhere that developing the productive capacities of
countries and economic transformation needs greater attention (Gore, 2007). However, he
argued that poverty and social development objectives and environmental concerns should
be dealt with as part of the way in which productive capacities are developed. Allison,
drawing upon a recent voices of children participatory exercise, made three key points.
First, she noted much greater focus is needed on children and young people as the best way
to break inter-generational poverty transmission. Second, more attention needs to be paid
to genuine national ownership, which is not the same as government ownership and
requires the meaningful engagement of civil society. Third, an MDG plus agenda should

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 After 2015 841

stress participation, empowerment, active citizenships; mutual responsibility and accounta-

bility of people and their governments, backed (but not led) by support from international
actors.
Fennell (2008), Fischer (2008) and Gulrajani (2008) argued respectively that more
attention is needed on discourses, systemic production and trade relationships, and
institutions. The Fennell paper argued that we need to emphasise the legal framework to
guide the achievement of objective well-being; Fischer emphasised the need to return to an
understanding of the structural basis of poverty and development. Gulrajani argued we
need more attention to politics and the fostering of smaller more democratic organisations
and the close integration of the socio-political context of development.
It was consequently argued that there is a need to pay greater attention to the recon-
stitution of the economic discourse with social norms, legal rights and responsibilities; a
need for poor countries to be able to run chronic current account deficits, generated from
productive accumulation rather from declining terms of trade, without being penalised by
financial markets but supported through long-term preferential forms of finance; and a
need to emphasise the inherent socio-political and the moral context in development
management.
The papers by Fennell, Fischer and Gulrajani also respectively comment that we need
greater attention to global development grounded in social, moral and legal dialogues and
contexts; that we need to correct the mainstream focus on domestic institutional changes in
poor countries and to place much more emphasis on globalised incentive structures; and
that we need a global shift towards development organisation rather than development
management to enable a deeper exploration.
In terms of what we need to do or think differently, participants identified the following:
We need to think much more about a development agenda that further stresses,
participation, empowerment, active citizenship; mutual responsibility and accountability
of people and their governments; a revisiting of the rubrics of the social sciences and the
legal system to go beyond economic wealth and the market towards the riches of
human development and well-being; a recognition that surplus can be generated both by
neoliberal reforms as well as by a productionist state; and a non-managerial approach to
development.

5 CONCLUDING DISCUSSION

The MDGs have been pursued to date in a relatively stable world, reasonably predictable
for planning, growth and aid. The MDGs have provided a rallying call and real
instrumentality. Looking to the future, the context for poverty reduction is likely to be a
more complex and uncertain world. The current financial crisis has led to calls for a new
paradigm and/or focus for ‘development’ and development policy. There are various
competing ideas in the Collier, Easterly and Sachs narratives. There were others introduced
in the DSA conference panel.
As 2015 approaches, and in light of the current global financial crisis there will be more
space to rethink international development. The development community (by which we
mean those involved in ‘development’, defined as broadly as possible to include the voices
of the poor and marginalised) could propose ‘more of the same’ post-2015. This might
mean the current set of MDGs are carried forward with or without a new timeline. Jeffery
Sachs has argued for 2025 and others for 2020. However, is just another 5–10 years enough
to make meaningful progress?

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842 A. Sumner and M. Tiwari

Alternatively, the development community could be bolder about heralding a new

development agenda which has a wider scope, but which is still anchored around the
MDGs, such as that noted at the DSA conference panel. This might seek to capture what
Manning (2009: 65) calls a more ‘one-world’ approach aimed at encouraging policy
makers in all countries to give greater weight to tackling systemic inter-related global
issues of which poverty is one in itself and strongly influenced by others such as climate
change. This resonates with the often forgotten MDG 8 on global partnership. This might
include new or different kinds of thinking related to adaptation and locally-defined
development or a core of the same MDGs with a surrounding outer-ring of something new
that was locally defined.
In sum, the answer to the question of ‘what next’ depends on several fundamental
choices: Should the emphasis be on universal indicators, such as the MDGs, or more
locally-defined measures of progress, or both? Should the emphasis be on global
development (systemic issues of which poverty is a central one) or the ‘bottom billion’
(Collier’s poorest countries), or both? Should the emphasis be on material deprivation or
something broader, such as human development or human well-being? Should the
emphasis be on indicators of outcomes or progress (which most of the MDGs are), or of an
enabling environment (reducing vulnerabilities)?
Whatever the outcome advocated, considerable work is needed soon in order to have
sufficient time for a global debate on any post-2015 architecture. The 2010 UN MDG þ 10
meetings are likely to be major fora where these issues will be discussed next year. This is
just the beginning. A truly global and participatory discussion through a series of
roundtables, public events, research and debate is needed.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We would like to thank two anonymous referees for their comments and authors of all three
papers for their contributions. The valuable suggestions made by the two panelists Charles
Gore and Christine Allison, are also acknowledged.

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