ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT 9

TABLE 1.1
_______________________Millennium Development Goals and Targets for 2015

Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

Target 11 : Have achieved by 2020 a significant
Target 1 : Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum
of people whose income is less than $ 1 a day (now $1.25 a dwellers.
day). Goal 8 : Develop a global partnership for
Target 2 : Halve, between 1990 and 2015,t the development
proportion of people who suffer from hunger. Target 12 : Develop further an open, rule-based,
predictable, non-discriminatory trading and financial
Goal 2 : Achieve universal primary education
system (includes a commitment to good governance,
Target 3: Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere,
development, and poverty reduction - both nationally
boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of
internationally.)
primary schooling.
Target 13 : Address the special needs of the least
Goal 3 : Promote gender equality and empower developed countries (includes tariff and quota-free access
women
for exports, enhanced programme of debt relief and
Target 4 : Eliminate gender disparity in primary and cancellation of offical bilateral debt; and more generous
secondary education, preferably by 2005 and in all levels of offical development assistance (ODA) for countries
education no later than 2015. committed to poverty reduction).
Goal 4 : Reduce child mortality Target 14: Address the special needs of landlocked
Target 5 : Reduce by two-thirds, between 1990 and countries and small island developing states (through the
2015, the under-five mortality rate. Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of
Small Island Developing States and 22nd General Assembly
Goal 5 : Improve maternal health
provisions).
Target 6 : Reduce by three-quarters, between 1990 and
Target 15 : Deal comprehensively with the debt
2015, the maternal mortality ratio.
problems of developing countries through national and
Goal 6 : Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other international measures in order to make debt sustainable in
diseases the long term.
Target 7: Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the Target 16 : In cooperation with developing countries,
spread of HIV/AIDS. develop and implement strategies for decent and productive
work for youth.
Target 8: Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the
Target 17 : In cooperation with pharmaceutical
incidence of malaria and other major diseases.
companies, provide access to affordable essential drugs in
Goal 7 : Ensure environmental sustainability developing countries.
Target 9 : Integrate the principles of sustaniable Target 18: In cooperation with the private sector, make
development into country policies and programmes and available the benefits of new technologies, especially
reverse the loss of environmental resources. information and communications technologies.
Target 10: Halve by 2015 the proportion of people
without sustainable access to safe drinking water.

Source : Unites nations Development Programme, "Millennium Development Goals" August 16, 2007.

the United Nations, the World Bank, the
International Monetary Fund (IMF), the
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD), and the World Trade
Organisation (WTO) all helped develop the
Millennium Declaration and so have a collective
policy commitment to attacking poverty directly.
he MDGs assign specific responsibilities to rich
c
°untries, including increased aid, removal of
trade and investment barriers, and eliminating
unsustainable debts of the poorest nations.
The MDGs have been challenged on the basis
of setting targets that may be either too high or too
low, based on the historical experience. The MDGs
also fail to address the fundamental economic
problems of trade-off and priorities. If one cannot
fufill all 18 targets simultaneously, then which
issue should take precedence : maternal mortality
or access to safe drinking water or reducing
hunger or promoting
 ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
10 also others, including people living in poverty,
environmental sustainability? This is l ess a civil society and indigenous and local
problem for defining development. Economic communities, mutilateral institutions, business,
development involves all these goals: But it is a academia and philanthropy.
practical problem for those charged wit^ The High-Level Panel also agreed on well-
realising this ambitious development agenda. recognised and illusrative universal goals and
4. SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS national targets for the SDGs, including an
outright end by 2030, of poverty, hunger, child
(SDGs)
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) marriage, preventable under-5 deaths and specific
and targets were announced in 2000 by the 189 targets on stunting, social protection coverage
member countries of the United Nations. The anc[ maternal, mortality.17
targets were set to be achieved by 2015. With .^
the expiration of the MDGs, the United Nations Economic Development and Economic Growtft
coordinated global efforts to launch its successor, jn general parlance, these two terms connote
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), The t^e game meanmg and there appears to be no
development agenda for SDGs was based on the difference between them. 'Economic Progress/
report of the High-Level Panel of Eminent 'Economic Welfare' and 'Secular Change' are
Persons.16 This highly diverse panel of political the terms which are mter_ changeably used for

leaders from every part of he world agreed upon
a bold approach that is expected to substantially
influence the eventual shape of the post-2015
agenda, i.e., SDGs. The panel repeatedly stressed
that it is "a universal agenda" for all countries,
developed as well as developing and without
exceptions, "to be driven by five big
transformative shifts", explained below.
(i) Leave no one behind-to move "from reducing to
ending extreme poverty, in all its froms"; in particular, to
"design goals that focus on reaching excluded groups."
(ii) Put sustainable development at the core,
"to integrate the social, economic, and environmental
dimensions of sustainability."
(in) Transfor economies for jobs and inclusive
growth, while moving to sustainable patterns of work and
life.
economic development and economic growth. Apparently,
the layman may not find any difference in these terms but
some economists have drawn a line of demarcation between
economic development and economic growth.
(i) Mrs. U. Hicks has explained the difference between
these two terms in the following words.
"The problems of underdeveloped countries are linked
with the development of unused resources, even though their
uses are well known; while those of advanced countries are
related to growth, most of their resources being already
known and developed to a considerable extent" 18. This
explanation makes a clear distinction between development
and growth. The first term relates to the problems of
underdeveloped countries and their solutions,

(iv) Build peace and effective, open and !*jCOn<* !frm *S r.elatec* to I
accountable institutions for all which "encourage jp-plnr. . . danced countries. Economic
the rule of law, property rights, freedom of speech d e l i b e r a t e ^ " e ff o r t s ^ r E T t a S " t h e
problems of underdevelopment. Economic
and the media open political choice, access to
growth, on the other hand, is an automatic
justice and accountable government and public
process, and it does not require any special effort
institutions."
to be undertaken by the governments of advanced
(v) Forge a new global partnership so that each priority
_________________________________________________________countries. This distinction has been made ofl
should
15. A strategy for achieving involve
the MDGs governments
is laid and hv TTM
out in a report 'P ro ect~-------------!-------“-- - -/
Development : A Practical Plan to Achieve the UN Millennium Develnnm™* r l . l ' Huesfmg it
Development Programme, 2005) biennium Development Goals (New York : United Nation*
Hich Level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-201 ^ ». A J .
Eradicate Poverty and Transform Economies Through Sustainable Devefopment ^^Revort^nh^Hi^h TPar\neprshif j
V
Eminent Persons on the post - 2015 Development Agenda, May 30, 2013. High-Level Panel
16. Michael P. Todaro and Stephen C.Smith, Economic Development, Twelfth Edition 2018 p 27
Urusula Hicks, Learning About Economic Development, Oxford Economic Papers, Feb. 1957.

17.
18.