Comments on: How can a post-2015 agreement drive real change? Please read and comment on this draft paper

By: Kerstin Danert

Kerstin Danert — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 23:57:18 +0000

The Rural Water Supply Network (RWSN) will put out a statement on Monday 28th January as part of the Thematic Consultation on water – a statement on People, Power and Politics.

I argue that this is the heart of the issue, but what do other people think?

By: Sam Gardner

Sam Gardner — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 06:40:30 +0000

The Current MDGs were rather simple indicators driving a complex process. Especially the child-related indicators were aimed at measurable impact on the poor.

On these indicators all kind of actions were build. So to diminish child mortality, you need a working community health system. To diminish maternal mortality, you need a working referral system.

If the goals are picked up by the different actors, most of the other elements in the table should follow from your global goals.

The current goals are not perfect, but they deal with very relevant issues for the poor.

From most discussions on the new MDGs, I understand it will be a more complicated set, with more goals and more indicators.

Makes me think of the Rio agenda, or the Kairo Agenda for Action. The most common use of the Rio agenda I have seen, was the use to raise the computer screen to diminish neck and back problems. The most extensive use of the Cairo Agenda was to kill simple and effective goal setting or initiatives.

By: Sanchit Kumar

Sanchit Kumar — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 16:00:22 +0000

I don’t have any comment to make about the draft (which I found thought provoking, and I have no doubt that everyone’s views will evolve as discussions of the post 2015 development agenda intensify). Today however I started thinking about how either of the US presidential candidates would approach the post-2015 aid and international development framework, given that either Obama or Romney would be president at around that time. I have to say, I’m not very hopeful, regardless of who wins, and I’m feeling particularly miffed with Bob Schieffer for not raising the question during the foreign policy debate.

By: Søren

Søren — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 10:27:09 +0000

I should probably include my particular point with the long quote. My only comment to your paper is that I would perhaps emphasise that ‘bringing power and politics to centre stage’ isn’t done by adopting an orthodox economic approach to behaviour and incentives alone. I suspect, given the paper’s targeted audience, it’d be a point worth stressing.

Otherwise, Bravo! Thanks for sharing it.

By: pete cranston

pete cranston — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 10:10:29 +0000

Duncan, sorry I missed your reply and question about crowdsourcing and good to see ‘traditional’ papers get good responses here. And no, I can’t think of a ‘ground-breaking piece of political economy’ that was crowdsourced, but then I am not sure that is the right question for crowdsourcing.

The think-write-consult(peer-review)-publish/deliver to management process reminds comes from within a more model of policy development and influence that rests on big-brains getting it right, with periodic small amounts of help from smaller brains. Managers and the mythical policy-makers make decisions on the best advice.

But as you so rightly say, policy influence rests on networks and conversations. So maybe it’s time for Oxfam to move beyond the paper-blog-comment model: have a http://www.macrowikinomics.com like site ((wikipolinomics.oxfam.org !) that publishes and welcomes comments on a host of policy issues, engages brains of all sizes to engage and contribute including, crucially, the managers and policy-actors whom we’re trying to influence

By: Søren

Søren — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 09:50:37 +0000

It’s stating the obvious, I know, .. but, an important reminder.

“Successful reform requires much more than a change of rules; it requires creating new systems of interrelated institutional elements that motivate, enable, and guide individuals to take particular actions. Reform must first empirically identify, rather than assume, the transactions that are important for improving welfare, as they depend on local conditions and institutions.
…
Such considerations entail recognizing that institutions are not rules, that institutional development is a sequential process in which past institutional elements matter, that an institution’s implications depend on various conditions, and that different institutions are better in different circumstances.
…
..we have to recall that the very same cognitive, coordinative, normative, and informational factors that make institutions important determinants of behaviour forestall devicing institutional reforms. Given a particular context, it is difficult to know what institutions are beneficial or what the long-term implications are of introducing new institutional elements. (…) An institution that represents a better fit with existing ones may be easier to implement, but it may reinforce other institutions that are better undermined.”

(Avner Greif, Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy Pp402-404

By: Geoff Howse

Geoff Howse — Sat, 03 Nov 2012 03:29:59 +0000

MDG has had some positive effects – on prospective beneficiaries where Governments have had to make commitments to improve outcomes, and on donor countries to demonstrate how they contribute to countries achieving the goal (or making substantial progress toward it). In education sector, MDG2, my assessment is that the indicator is too abstract and focuses attention on improving “measurement” rather than outcomes. Having all 6 year-olds enrolled (and attending)a school with qualified teachers would focus attention on more substantial activity – linked to Primary completion rates and progress to next level of education.

By: ruth white

ruth white — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 02:31:18 +0000

I responded with my own blogpost as I felt the need to say more about the paper.

http://provokingpolicy.blogspot.com/2012/10/beyond-2015-search-for-new-objectives.html

By: ruth white

ruth white — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 23:57:21 +0000

I have an issue with global targets. They seem grand but they are so ethereal in their PR related to an issue that i find them useless in motivating anyone to do anything. As a community organizer i lean heavily towards a bottom-up model that doesn’t connect directly to the uber macro global level. ‘Global’ is so much about who has power in the global systems of power and money and not really about the people whose lives these dollars and policies impact. Who can connect with ‘zero hunger’ when the challenge looms so ridiculously large and complex. it sounds cool but that’s it. I do think that one of the key issues is that its the northern/westerner donor/programmer that is flitting about on planes and speaking at conferences instead of the southerner/easterner recipient telling their story around the world. We are also the ones writing about it when the little (or lot) that we know about it comes from being on the privileged side of the equation. Thus we can afford to be philosophical and political and set big goals when really its a lot of little actions that make the difference at the bottom.

By: Matt Davies

Matt Davies — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 17:46:22 +0000

Dear Duncan

Thanks for the draft. Intersting point about need to do qualitative research with policy people to ask them what they see is direct MDG related impact.

Many of us are working at the other end, doing qualitiative participatory research with people in extreme poverty – ATD Fourth World is part of the IDS/Beyond 2015 “Participate” project. Of course we cannot evaluate the MDGs as such for the reasons you point out, but we can generate knowledge from people in poverty by asking them about impact of “social welfare” programmes. Building on what they tell us in terms of what works and doesn’t, we can generate proposals for post-2015 using participatory methodologies. Would be interesting to have some comment on scope for participatory research influencing content of post-2015.

On International Law, it’s worth pointing out the recent adoption by the UN’s Human Rights Council of Guiding Principles on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights. Rather than including new law, the Guiding Principles are a tool for States, as well as non-state actors, to identify and address the barriers people in extreme poverty face in effectively claiming the rights that States have committed to realising. Certainly a tool for thinking what a post-2015 rights based framework shoudl include. For more info see OHCHR website http://www.ohchr.org/en/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=12598&LangID=E