Why economic growth should not be at the heart of our global development goals

In 2000 every member of the UN signed up to a set of millennium development goals (MDGs) due to be achieved by 2015. As the deadline approaches, the targets seem less and less attainable, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. The inevitable question is: why have we not gone further in achieving the MDGs?

A variety of answers have been supplied, all of which have some validity. Some argue that the goals were too top-down, did not focus enough on economic development or were simply too ambitious. This debate is probably premature: the deadline is still three years away and until we have the full data it is impossible to say which goals were hardest to achieve, where and why.

However, with the announcement on 13 April that David Cameron is set to chair a UN committee establishing a new set of development goals for after 2015 and the upcoming Rio+ summit in June which is due to decide on a set of sustainable development goals critically evaluating the MDGs is now essential.

For Cameron, the focus is likely to be on arranging the goals around economic growth with an emphasis on private sector involvement. This is worrying.

It would be disingenuous to deny the positive effect economic development has had on the MDG outcomes in China; economic growth can be harnessed to achieve fantastic results. However, in and of itself it does not improve healthcare, provide education or reduce inequality. In many instances, it can exacerbate existing problems or create new ones in these areas - when economic growth is not harnessed for good by an effective government it can mean more for the rich and less for the poor. Case studies demonstrating this have been highlighted in a book called Dying for Growth co-edited by new leader of the World Bank Jim Yong Kim.

Cameron has used his positive move to commit to 0.7% of the UK’s GDP on aid as a stepping stone to enforce his outdated and potentially disastrous view about world development. Unless this focus on economic growth is clearly stipulated to mean only economic growth for all the next set of goals will be worse and not better than the MDGs.

Take a comparison of two countries for which data is available regarding achievement of the MDGs: India and Cuba. India has achieved remarkable economic growth in recent decades while Cuba’s has been more or less stagnant. And yet Cuba has already achieved three of its MDG targets, being on course to achieve most of the rest while India looks set to fail on almost all counts. What is the reason for this difference? The answer is political will.

While the private sector has its place in global development this should be on the sidelines, as a supplement and an indirect actor. The drive for profits will not help those who are so in need of real achievement in the field of development. What will help are governments who have the political desire to make the vast improvements required. Economic growth can only be a supporter of this; it cannot be the driving factor.

I will leave the last word to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon from the 2011 MDGs report: 'Achieving the [millenium development] goals will require equitable and inclusive economic growth - growth that reaches everyone and that will enable all people, especially the poor and marginalised, to benefit from economic opportunities.'


This article originally appeared in Voices of the 7 Billion