Geographic Perspectives on Development Goals

Article Dialogues in Human Geography 2018, Vol. 8(2) 168–185 ª The Author(s) 2018 Geographic perspectives on Reprints and permission: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav development goals: Constructive DOI: 10.1177/2043820618780787 engagements and critical journals.sagepub.com/home/dhg perspectives on the MDGs and the SDGs Diana M Liverman University of Arizona, USA Abstract The successes and failures of the UN Millennium Development Goals and the establishment of a new set of Sustainable Development Goals provide many opportunities for geographic engagement and critical attention. Development goals, in their focus at the national level and on measurable indicators, redirect investment and frame views of the world. They are often difficult to measure and implement and sometimes contradictory. In reviewing the history, progress, and critiques of the UN goals, this article asks what a geographic perspective shares and adds to the debates about development, its measurement, and impact. Keywords critical geography, development, Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Introduction In its first World Development Report in 1978, the World Bank highlighted absolute poverty as a Why a dialogue on development goals in geogra- continuing problem despite progress in incomes, phy? Comparisons between countries and places education, nutrition, and health, and reported a set are characteristic of geographic inquiry and policy of national development indicators that included analysis, often expressed in socioeconomic and production and trade, demography, health, and edu- environmental indicators that purport to measure cation (World Bank, 1978). The World Bank and progress, well-being, sustainability, and the condi- many other international organizations now regu- tion of ‘development’. With roots in the colonial larly report the state of development—mostly at the enterprise to exploit natural resources and ‘civi- country level based on information provided by lize’ non-Western cultures, the idea of development has been associated with a modernizing project that measures progress primarily in terms of economic growth, and secondly as improve- Corresponding author: Diana M Liverman, School of Geography and Development, ments in literacy, health, and living conditions University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA. (Kothari, 2006). Email: [email protected] Liverman 169 member nations. These development data pervade at the forefront, the MDGs reshaped decision- publications and teaching and are used by the media making in developed and developing countries and politicians to claim comparative success or alike. (United Nations, 2015b: 3) progress, failure or decline. Geography has been a This article seeks to open up a conversation about partner and a critic of the idea and measurement of goal-driven development among geographers and to development—collecting and analyzing data, chal- consider what we might add to the debates and prac- lenging assumptions and measures of progress, and tices about the purpose, nature, and impacts of curating texts and maps that show different aspects development goals. I argue that while it is certainly of development and environment around the world true that the MDGs reshaped development decision- (Blaikie, 2000; Dorling et al., 2008; Hart, 2001; making, the effects are more perverse, and their Seager, 2009; Slater, 1974; Watts, 1984). Yet some success is more contested and uneven than their observe that geography and geographers are rarely champions suggest. While the goals are associated seen as major contributors to the general theories with some improvements in incomes, health, and and practices of development, despite their concern access to food and water, they are also flawed in the and distinctive skills (Bebbington, 2002; Peck and selection of targets, the accuracy of measurement, Sheppard, 2010). and the aggregation of data and classification of A renewed and expanded vision of development countries. The MDGs significantly reoriented the emerged when, in 2000, the United Nations Millen- activities and discourses of donors, nongovernmen- nium Declaration called for the elimination of pov- tal organizations (NGOs), and developing countries. erty and hunger as well as improvements in health, They produced new forms of governmentality and education, and gender equity (United Nations Gen- biopolitics aligned with processes of neoliberalism, eral Assembly, 2000). Progress toward the Millen- such as a focus on public–private partnerships, nium Development Goals (MDGs) would be quantitative outcome measures, solutions through measured using national-level development indica- markets, and individual rather than collective stra- tors from 1990 to 2015 and against targets that tegies (Death and Gabay, 2015; Harvey, 2007; included halving the proportions of people in pov- Liverman and Vilas, 2006). In the second part of erty or who are undernourished. Assessing this article, I address the question of potential geo- the MDGs in 2015, UN Secretary General Ban graphic contributions to debates over development Ki-moon claimed goals. As the United Nations declares partial success The global mobilization behind the Millennium in achieving the MDGs and moves forward with a Development Goals has produced the most success- new set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), ful anti-poverty movement in history. The landmark what might geography have to say about the poten- commitment entered into by world leaders in the tial and pitfalls of setting such development goals? year 2000—to spare no effort to free our fellow Can we constructively engage with the post-2015 men, women and children from the abject and dehu- development agenda and the SDGs in ways that are manizing conditions of extreme poverty—was trans- progressive and meaningful? And what does con- lated into an inspiring framework of eight goals and, structive engagement imply for our everyday scho- then, into wide-ranging practical steps that have larship, service, and outreach? enabled people across the world to improve their lives and their future prospects. The MDGs helped to lift more than one billion people out of extreme The MDGs poverty, to make inroads against hunger, to enable more girls to attend school than ever before and to The MDGs were proposed in association with the protect our planet. They generated new and innova- United Nations Millennium Declaration and Sum- tive partnerships, galvanized public opinion and mit in 2000. They were adopted by 189 member showed the immense value of setting ambitious states and more than 20 international organizations, goals. By putting people and their immediate needs including the World Bank and World Health and 170 Dialogues in Human Geography 8(2) Food and Agriculture Organizations. Eight goals were recommendations and targets. The Organization for established, focused on human capital (measured in Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) terms of nutrition, health, and education), infrastruc- synthesized these into a set of international devel- ture (access to water, energy, and IT), and human opment goals that could motivate donors, but the rights (empowering women, increasing voice and initial goals were criticized by global civil society, access). Each goal had specific targets for improving were contested among various international agen- conditions in the developing world, from a baseline of cies, and lacked buy in from developing countries. 1990 by 2015, for a total of 21 targets measured by A slightly more consultative process was used to 60 official indicators. The goals set out to draft text for the September 2000 UN Millennium Summit (the Millennium Declaration) and the sub- 1. eradicate extreme poverty and hunger—tar- sequent road map report that formalized the set of gets include halving the proportion of people goals and targets at the global and national scales. living in poverty and suffering from hunger; A pivotal decision was the selection of a 1990 2. achieve universal primary education; baseline, and 2015 end point, for the targets. 3. promote gender equality and empower McArthur suggests that the choice of 1990 mirrored women—targets include eliminating gender the baselines used in the topical conferences in the disparity in education, employment, and 1990s, addressed the lack of up-to-date 2000 data political representation; available at the time of the Millennium Summit, and 4. reduce child mortality—target of reducing was a better fit to historical trends making it easier child mortality rate by two-thirds; for countries to achieve at least some of the targets 5. improve maternal health—targets to reduce (McArthur, 2014). Critics suggest that the 1990 maternal mortality ratio by 75%, universal baseline was a way to weaken the goals and to cyni- access to contraception; cally ensure rapid progress in reaching the goals— 6. combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other dis- especially because 1990 preceded rapid growth in eases—halt and reverse spread of HIV/AIDS incomes in China and the improvements in access to and incidence of malaria; water, health care, and education in many regions 7. ensure environmental sustainability— (Fukuda-Parr et al., 2013; Vandemoortele, 2011b). reduce biodiversity loss and carbon dioxide Thus, the commitment to the MDG targets was (CO2) emissions, halve proportion of people made after much progress had already been made. with access to improved water and sanita- The value of a concise set of goals, with a modest tion;

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