In September 2015, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are being adopted as the world’s shared global economic, social, and environmental agenda through 2030. They will build upon the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of development targets that gradually became the common reference point for global policy efforts after being established at the U.N. Millennium Summit in September 2000.

The 17 SDGs reflect the complexity of the world’s challenges. On one level, they focus on finishing the job of the MDGs, i.e., the “second half” of eliminating extreme poverty. On another, they broaden the agenda to include global priorities not addressed by the MDGs, such as inequality, infrastructure, and peace and justice, alongside a better articulation of global environmental priorities. They also break down the barriers between developed and developing countries, setting out a universal agenda through which global absolutes are married with country-specific contexts.

A considerable amount of public dialogue will be required to translate the international agreements into practical forms of implementation. Analysis, deliberation, and debate will need to span public officials, academic communities, and engaged citizens alike.

To that end, it is a useful juncture to take stock of the recent history of MDG-focused public conversations and how they might inform opportunities for the SDGs. In this paper, we do so by examining three categories of print publications: major English-language newspapers; leading academic journals across a variety of relevant disciplines; and policy research papers produced by the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, and Inter-American Development Bank.

In evaluating these publications, we ask three simple questions:

1. Have there been discernible trends in media references to the MDGs—by year, publication, and geography?
2. Have there been discernible trends in MDG references across academic journals and disciplines?
3. How does the early pattern of MDG media references compare to the emerging early pattern of SDG media references?

For context, this paper does not aim to present a complete assessment of all MDG-related public media conversations. Instead, it focuses on the frequency of MDG references across articles published by a cross section of prominent newspapers, academic journals, and multilateral development bank research papers. Note that the search procedure does not require the MDGs to be the actual focus of an article in order to be counted; rather, the MDGs need only to be mentioned. The methodology thereby reflects an expansive notion of “MDG coverage,” the term we use in this paper to include both articles that might concentrate on the MDGs as objectives and those that might simply mention the MDGs as a reference point.

The paper proceeds in six sections. Following this introduction, Section II describes data sources and methods. Results begin in Section III, which considers MDG coverage in major newspapers. Section IV considers a cross section of prominent academic journals. Section V examines research papers produced by multilateral development banks. Section VI presents a brief discussion and conclusion.

Download the full paper (PDF) »

No matter how far we travel, how much we learn, or how many amazing people we meet along the way, if we want to understand what’s going on in the world then it always pays to check in with home base. Especially with our moms.

This axiom hit me like a friendly slap across the face last month, on the day when the 193 United Nations member countries concluded their multi-year effort to establish a new set of “Sustainable Development Goals” to guide the world through to 2030. These goals are being adopted by presidents and prime ministers this weekend at a major U.N. summit. They are successors to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of eight objectives established back in 2000, anchored in a premise of cutting the many forms of extreme poverty by half by 2015.

The MDGs remain little known to the general public, but they became a North Star guiding international cooperation, prompting diverse actors around the world to row their boats in the same direction.  In early 2002, I became one of the first people deeply involved with those goals, part of a small U.N. group tasked with bringing them fully to life. In the intervening years, I have arguably spent as much time as anyone thinking and talking about the how the world sets and pursues its shared targets.

A few years ago, when considering how to set a new generation’s goals, the U.N. initiated the most inclusive global agenda-setting conversation the world has ever seen. A vast range of constituencies were engaged, spanning parliamentary committees, businesses, civil society organizations, academics, practitioners, and millions of regular citizens online.

The deliberations raised an enormous number of topics, and found early consensus that the new goals needed to be anchored in the end of extreme poverty. But beyond that, it was a mammoth task to define the scope of an agenda suitable for 193 countries, each of which has unique economic, social, and environmental concerns. A big debate focused on how many goals there should even be.  Many prominent voices argued that anything beyond 10 or 12 goals would be politically impotent.

Fast-forward to a recent Sunday, August 2, and, after a grueling final stretch of negotiations, all U.N. member states agreed on a new set of goals—17 of them—anchored in a vision of promoting people, planet, and prosperity for 2030. The accord prompted mixed emotions for me and many of my colleagues around the world. On one hand, there was relief and excitement that the goal-setting process was at last complete. On the other hand, everyone knows the key challenge lies in implementation. The first step in that regard is to explain what has even been agreed upon. And how does one explain 17 goals?

Enter my mother. That same Sunday night I called her, a retiree in her seventies who still lives in my home town of Vancouver, Canada. She doesn’t fully understand what I do with my days, but is always very supportive. During our conversation I mentioned that it had been a big day, because all 193 countries had finally confirmed a new generation’s global goals, including the end of extreme poverty. She thought this all sounded terrific. 

There was only one big problem, I confessed.  “What’s that?” she wondered.  “These goals,” I mumbled, almost embarrassed to reveal a pivotal detail, “there are 17 of them.”

My mom’s response caught me off guard, to say the least: “Seventeen is a great number,” she enthused. In mild shock, I blurted, “You’re the first person to say that!” Then I asked, with likely the sardonic tone of an unpersuaded teenager, “Why is 17 a great number, mom?”

What she said next simply struck me to my core: “It sounds like they didn’t fake it. The world is complicated.” She later added, “If they had come back with some Letterman-style top 10 then I probably wouldn’t have believed them.”

The next week I had to give a short speech about the new goals at a World Economic Forum conference in Geneva.  I summarized the technical stuff: that the world is chalking up unprecedented gains on issues like extreme poverty and child survival. I argued that the gains are driving new challenges, like climate change, to expand even faster than the rate of progress. I showed a picture of 17 beautiful icons that have been created to illustrate the new goals, and quickly ad-libbed the story about my mom.

Over the next few days, a large number conference attendees came up to me conveying tremendous enthusiasm for the new goals, many of them commenting, “It’s like your mom said—the world is complicated.” I heard the remark enough times that I started sharing her vignette more deliberately in other speeches and conversations. Pretty much every time, it shifts the discussion into overdrive. It’s as if people feel energized by a simple statement that articulates the complexity they already feel.

The positive dynamic continued to the extent that earlier this month an eminent colleague sent me an e-mail saying, “I actually quoted your Mum when I was talking to the secretary-general today. 17—it’s a magic number.”

I now have a fresh take on the 17 goals. They are a reflection of a broader truth. Our collective aim should not be to rally around narrow simplicity, but instead to respect people’s intellects and their desire to overcome complexity through cooperation.

As a coda to the story, my mother has recently started to dabble in texting, so in late August I sent her a 2-line message while traveling abroad. It mentioned that I had run into a famous person at a function, and that he lit up when I described her pithy insight about the goals. Cementing her status in my personal pantheon of wisdom, she answered with six words: “Alas, I know fame is fleeting … xoxo.”  

Last Friday saw the formal adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals at a special summit of the United Nations. Standing atop its exhaustive and unwieldy agenda is a singular objective: to end extreme poverty by 2030.

Extreme poverty is defined by the parsimonious $1.25 a day poverty line to capture only the most egregious forms of destitution: where people live so precariously that they fret about the source of their next meal and are burdened by the simple stresses of survival. Were this kind of poverty really to be eliminated, it would hardly imply a world of universal prosperity; hardship and deprivations of various kinds would remain commonplace. Nevertheless, it would represent a key milestone in human progress.

Inspiring though this goal is, it is not new. In fact, it has been pledged many times in the past. That suggests achieving the goal may be harder than we think.

Despite the strong progress there has been in reducing extreme poverty over the last generation and more, an extrapolation of past trends is problematic. What worked to reduce poverty in certain countries won’t necessarily work for others. Global factors that supported poverty reduction in the past are expected to change.

In other words, the last mile in ending extreme poverty looks different from the miles already traveled. These differences are explored in a new book I co-edited with Homi Kharas and Hiroshi Kato. We argue that ending extreme poverty will require a stronger focus on securing peace, creating jobs, and building resilience. The book explores what works in tackling these three issues so the last mile might successfully be completed.

The Creative Lab at Brookings has put together a neat little video describing the book’s themes. I encourage you to watch the video and if you enjoy it, to read our book.

Video

• What will it take to end extreme poverty?

Since 1990, when democracy was restored in Bangladesh, the country has done a tremendous job enrolling approximately 9 million girls in school, with nearly 3 million of those girls attending school in madrassas. For those unaware of madrassa education, these are traditional Islamic schools, often poorly resourced and located in more rural settings. The general public often imagines madrassa to be regressive and culpable in spreading extremist ideology and providing a breeding ground for terrorism across the country. These images have led many madrassa to reform and modernize their curriculum.

Madrassa today are structured in one of two ways: Aliya and Qaumi. Aliya madrassas are supported by the state with a modified Dars-e-Nizami curriculum (which was established in India by Mulla Nizamudin Sihalwi and spread across the Indian subcontinent and beyond) with the inclusion of general education courses. Aliya madrassas are also known as mainstream madrassas, providing graduates with an education roughly equivalent to a general education, allowing Aliya graduates to compete for university admission and jobs. The Qaumi madrassas, on the other hand, operate based on donations and charity outside state support and recognition. As Qaumi madrassas are not recognized by the state, our knowledge of the scope of entry into higher education and the job market by graduates is very limited.

Girls’ education within the madrassa system is an important issue because the large number of enrolled girls suggests that many religiously-minded parents prefer to send their daughters to madrassas instead of conventional schools. Conversations with parents and previous studies indicate that parents often think that madrassas are safer for girls because of the strict gender segregation and norms as per Islamic rules.  

Although approximately 3 million girls in Bangladesh are enrolled in madrassa schools, the majority will not complete secondary school or transition to university, and only the smallest percentage will enter the labor market. According to data from the madrassa Education Board of Bangladesh and informal conversations with madrassa teachers, an increasing number of girls attending madrassa drop out each year before completing lower secondary (grade 10) schooling and for those who do go on to upper secondary, a majority do not continue on to tertiary education. Alarmingly, only 3-4 percent of young women in Bangladesh will complete tertiary education and less than 1 percent (0.6 percent) of madrassa girls will join the workforce. So, even though madrassa education may be free of cost in many cases—a traditional barrier many girls face in enrolling in private school barriers related to the quality of girls’ education discourages their retention and completion in madrassas.

One issue is that madrassa education often puts girls’ education as secondary to that of boys. For example, the majority of madrassas around the country use a cloth curtain to divide the boys from the girls in the classroom. In many cases this creates a physical barrier to girls’ education by obstructing girls’ view of the teacher and the blackboard. In addition, only 2-3 percent of teachers are female in the madrassas, and men hold the main decision-maker roles in the madrassas. This sort of schooling environment discourages girls to continue to study through the secondary level.

The Bangladesh government has demonstrated its openness to reform by welcoming initiatives to develop girls’ education in order to achieve the Education for All (EFA) and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Many girl-focused projects, such as mentoring and promoting good governance, have been implemented with the support of international agencies, NGOs, and donors. But few, if any, of these education actors have directly attempted to work with these school leaders to develop girls’ education in these more conservative settings.

Since 2010, the Empowerment and Human Development Society (EHDS), the organization that I founded in 2009 and currently chair, has stepped in to fill this gap. Drawing on nearly 15 years of experience as an administrator, social activist, and entrepreneur, and with the support of the U.S. Department of State, EHDS has worked with 300 madrassas around the Sylhet region of Bangladesh through the project “Improving English Instructions in Sylhet’s madrassas.” In this project, EHDS has focused primarily on improving teaching methodology in madrassa and on awareness raising campaigns about girls’ empowerment to madrassa administrators and English teachers. Through this intensive involvement, we have found that the lack of government, NGO, and local leaders’ support of girls’ education may contribute to the high rates of dropout among girls in madrassas. Unlike government and NGO schools, girls in madrassas do not benefit from sponsored life skills or vocational training programs. These communities and parents are not targeted or approached with education and awareness campaigns about girls’ empowerment and the value of education and skill development. Additionally, madrassa schools are not systematically monitored, and thus girls attending these schools are not getting the support and interventions from relevant individuals and organizations that are important for their school continuation and completion. With only half of Bangladeshi girls attending madrassas completing their secondary education, systemic interventions must be given urgent attention.

During my time at Brookings as an Echidna Global Scholar my research will focus on understanding the current approaches and challenges to providing girls' education in madrassas in Bangladesh. My research aims to identify strategies for reducing dropout rates among girls, increasing completion rates, and improving the quality of education girls receive in these challenging settings. Ultimately, this new area of research will serve to inform pathways for engagement with madrassas by policymakers, so that all actors delivering education in the country are promoting girls’ completion of secondary school and all girls are able to access quality learning and skill development opportunities.

On Friday, September 25, the United Nations formally adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs are a set of 17 goals aimed at lowering global poverty, hunger, and inequality and addressing environmental challenges. Ahead of the U.N. Sustainable Development Summit—where the SDGs were adopted—the Global Economy and Development program at Brookings hosted International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Christine Lagarde for a discussion on the IMF’s role in implementing the post-2015 development agenda and the SDGs.

Here are some of the main takeaways of the discussion:

1.   Excessive inequality is particularly detrimental to sustainable growth.

Social issues like high levels of unemployment, particularly among youth, and income inequality are directly related to countries’ sustainability of growth, said Lagarde. Increasing the income and revenues of a country’s bottom 20 percent of earners has been shown to have a significant positive impact on sustainability. Steps that can be taken to drive down inequality include a combination of policy measures and redirected spending to focus on programs bringing direct benefits to citizens.

2.   Women are critical to closing gaps in three areas of policy: learning, labor, and leadership.

Lagarde insisted that beyond being a humanitarian and moral duty, it simply is an “economic no-brainer” for countries to improve the education levels of females. Countries should encourage women to enter leadership roles because when they do, it creates a role model effect inspiring other women to seek leadership roles. Through empirical analysis, the IMF has been measuring the impact of additional learning in young girls and observed increases in country earning levels and GDP as a direct result.

3.   Countries must take care of their poor before implementing policy measures that are going to affect them.

Lagarde discussed the removal of fossil fuel subsidies and their asymmetric distribution several times throughout the event. Typically, only 20 percent of a country’s subsidies go to those who need it— whom Lagarde identified as being critical to countries successfully removing subsidies. In an IMF study on countries attempting to phase out and remove fossil fuel subsidies, only those who actually addressed the 20 percent first were successful in achieving complete elimination.

4.   The public sector has a significant role to play in increasing sustainability through reorienting public spending and investment.

At the country level, investment in public infrastructure is extremely conducive to stimulating growth, Lagarde said. Infrastructure facilitates social sustainability and inclusion because increasing citizens’ accessibility to schools and jobs encourages women’s empowerment and education.

Watch the full video of the event »

Ariana Motazed contributed to this post.

Video

• Implementing the post-2015 development agenda: A conversation with IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde

With the sustainable development agenda recently approved the U.N. General Assembly, efforts to improve learning and outcomes around the world for the next 15 years will be led by Sustainable Development Goal 4. Here, we check in with three policymakers serving as LMTF 2.0 Learning Champions to gather their perspectives on what assessment challenges they are facing, how Goal 4 can help, and what’s still needed from the international community.

In Kenya, data collected from examinations oftentimes serve as the sole determinant of student learning. “Teachers purchase commercial tests at a local shop,” Darius Ogotu from the Kenyan Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology said. “They administer these tests in addition to other forms of assessment and use the results to determine whether the learner has acquired expected skills and competencies.” Ogotu raised concerns about the fact that these assessments are not aligned with the curriculum and are often of poor quality. “A child may be forced to sit for more than 10 different tests, and what is being assessed is not clear,” Ogotu said. He further added that the grade students receive on these “mock exams” is not indicative of their competencies.

Recently, Kenya eliminated school rankings as a country-wide effort to shift focus from exam results to the teaching and learning processes. “There was too much emphasis on summative evaluation, which made teaching and learning geared toward examinations,” Ogotu said. Kenya is currently working on a plan to implement school-based assessment and emphasize school-based solutions to support teachers in developing assessment tools. Learners’ concerns are also taken into account and have proven to be equally influential. “In Kenya, we have a children’s government. Children are democratically elected and sit as a government to discuss with school management key issues they would like addressed,” he said. “Assessment is also a big issue for them.”

In response to issues surrounding assessment, a new “meriting tool” has been developed to assess learning in a holistic manner. “We are piloting this tool now and hope that at the end of the piloting process in three months, we can analyze the results and form a basis from which to comprehensively assess various aspects of teaching and learning in schools,” Ogotu said. He added that Kenya’s goal is to create a forum that will allow for active discussions and dialogue in order to address gaps and collectively develop solutions.

Ensuring that the measurement of Goal 4 includes assessment for learning and incorporates indicators that track each step of the learning process is critical to adequately measuring student learning, says Ogotu. “It is my hope that the international community can look beyond literacy, numeracy, and enrollment indicators,” he said. “We need to look at the holistic development of the child, as someone who can not only read and write and has mathematical capabilities but as a human being who can live with other people in society and be productive, in a sustainable manner.”

Efficient resource mobilization geared toward national priorities and indicators is critical, especially for countries looking to achieve quality education. “There should be a coordinated, organized response to country needs, where donors and partners are working with governments,” Ogotu said. He further described that issues arise when international aid is not institutionalized within government priorities and disregards accountability. “If your intention is to help a child, then you should be accountable to that child,” he said. “Donor policies need to take into account country-led initiatives that have been prioritized through a process and that reflect what the country considers as needs.”

Teacher education programs in Zambia lack an assessment component and there is little technical expertise and few opportunities for teachers to build on skills within the country. “We set a goal for moving toward continuous assessment or school-based assessment as a vehicle for improving teaching and learning,” Angel Kaliminwa of the Examinations Council said. He added that the ministry’s recent move to revise the curricula at all levels has called for newly developed tools to be reconsidered.

In response to these challenges, a committee of stakeholders with a common interest in assessment was convened. Kaliminwa further added that the committee includes government and quasi-government officials as well as members of civil society and organizations such as UNICEF, USAID, and DFID, among others. Within the ministry, a budget line was also allocated for school-based assessment. Ongoing collaborative efforts with the teacher education department has allowed for a module on assessment to be included in pre-service training in Zambia.

Goal 4’s strong focus on learning will be more relevant than MDG 2 for countries such as Zambia that experienced high enrollment rates in the 1990s. “The main issue at hand is whether learners are acquiring competencies and skills,” Kaliminwa said. “The indicators need to reflect what is happening at the classroom level so that teachers can make connections to what they observe in their classrooms. We need to move away from the blanket-kind of indicators even if it is easier to collect data at the global level.”

Sophisticated, strategic plans that attract donors will allow for assessment to be viewed as a public good. “Donors must look at assessment as a public good, and that can only happen if they recognize country-level efforts,” Kaliminwa said. “Sometimes, I am surprised at how much more funding sports attract compared to education.” Donors should focus on long-term benefits rather than immediate ones. “The benefits will be seeing that this world is literate, numerate, and becomes scientific,” Kaliminwa said.

A constantly evolving political climate and insufficient technical expertise is an ongoing challenge for Palestine and the surrounding region. “Assessment and evaluation is heavily focused on proving—not improving,” Mohammed Matar of the Palestinian Ministry of Education and Higher Education said. “In order to plan and develop, you need stability but with new changes every one or two years, plans for sustainable development or reform are compromised.”

In 2000, Palestine received a mandate from the Finnish government to establish an assessment and evaluation unit with the goal to provide qualitative and quantitative indicators on student outcomes. After the establishment of the unit, ministry officials met with policymakers, faculty members at universities, and teachers to distribute information pamphlets on assessment and evaluation in all Palestinian schools. “Changing a culture and changing people’s mentality is time-consuming but was necessary in our case,” Matar said. He shared that now national assessments take place every two years in core subjects.

Palestine is currently working to introduce a national strategy for educational evaluation. Matar explained that it will be the first of its kind for the country as well as the region. “We are working to include life skills, information and communications technology literacy, and civic education, which were introduced to us two years ago through LMTF,” Matar explained. “We hope to assess these areas through school-based assessment.” Matar added that early childhood development is also a national priority. “We hope to pilot tools available from LMTF partners or other agencies to provide indicators to the minister and policymakers.”

The emphasis on quality education for all is welcomed in Palestine. Similar to Zambia, Palestine experienced a dramatic increase in enrollment rates, making enrollment indicators no longer as relevant. “Indicators need to focus on whether teachers perform well in the classroom and if the learner can think critically and is able to transfer skills to their life,” Matar said.

Ineffective donor coordination is a challenge in achieving quality education. “In Palestine, we have more than 40 education interventions, each from different donors,” Matar said. “At one point, we were assessing preschool students using three different models from three different organizations.” Matar pointed out that donors must first understand the challenges a country faces and develop a clear mandate, which will help policymakers effectively tackle development issues.

As our colleagues attest, relying on simple access indicators or even literacy and numeracy rates as sole indicators of education quality is no longer relevant. More than ever before, country leaders are looking for better and more sustainable ways to capture students’ learning outcomes and experiences. Kenya, Zambia, and Palestine are building systems to track previously overlooked learning domains and education levels to prepare students for success in the 21st century. As the indicators for the SDG framework are finalized by March 2016, the indicators for Goal 4 will need to reinforce this demand from countries for a comprehensive framework of indicators and the technical and financial resources to measure progress against them. 

Do United Nations summits matter? Many people have undoubtedly asked themselves that question in recent weeks as media headlines described otherwise unlikely gatherings of world leaders and celebrities linked to the adoption of the new sustainable development goals (SDGs) for 2030. After all, how often do Ban Ki-moon and Beyoncé cross paths on the same stage?

In our recent paper, “Who talked (and thought) about the Millennium Development Goals?” (MDGs) we find that summits definitely matter—not just for policy agreements, but also in stimulating public discussions. The paper takes a by-the-numbers look at references to the MDGs—the predecessors to the SDGs—across a range of English-language print media, academic journals, and policy research papers of multilateral development banks.

Here we highlight five key findings:

Over the period from 2000 through 2014, the MDGs were most commonly referenced across major newspapers in the years when the U.N. convened relevant major summits: 2005, 2008, and 2010 (Figure 1). Within each of these years, the article count in September, the month when high-level U.N. meetings occurred, was at least two times higher than in any other month. September 2005 was indeed the month with the highest intensity of MDG references across the entire sample. What is more, January 2005 saw the highest number of MDG references for any non-summit month in the sample. This was linked to the launch of the U.N. Millennium Project’s recommendations for achieving the MDGs.

Figure 1. Annual MDG coverage across 12 major newspapers, 2000-2014

2. The U.K. saw significant MDG coverage; India and Nigeria saw much more

SDG advocates aiming to build the public profile of the new “global goals” will be building from highly varied MDG baselines across different media markets. For example, most U.S. media outlets paid very little attention to the MDGs since their inception (Figure 2). This compares to more significant coverage in the U.K., the first G-7 country to fulfill the longstanding official development assistance target of 0.7 percent of gross national income, where stories were largely driven by the Financial Times and The Guardian. Among developing countries, major papers from India (Hindustan Times and The Times of India) and Nigeria (Vanguard) had considerably greater average MDG coverage, with South Africa’s The Star not far behind.

Figure 2. MDG coverage in select African & Indian, U.K., and U.S. papers, 2000-2014

In academia, the goals seemed to register in only a few scientific journals, The Lancet and World Development being the quantitative standouts in the sample (Figure 3). World Development had the largest percentage of articles referencing the MDGs, while The Lancet had the largest absolute number, at more than 1,200 over the period. Even though many of its articles were opinion pieces and news stories, The Lancet still had more original research articles referencing the MDGs than any other journal in the sample. By comparison, the major economics journals had very few references to the MDGs. In this light it is probably not a coincidence that global health saw the most significant MDG breakthroughs. The policy gains in this realm were underpinned by a robust long-term academic debate.

Figure 3. Articles referencing the MDGs in 12 academic journals, 2002-2014

4. Multilateral Development Banks had limited research focus on the MDGs

The World Bank and regional development banks’ policy research papers paid only modest attention to the MDGs. The World Bank has the most extensive database for these types of papers. From 2002 to 2014, the institution published an average of 338 policy research papers per year, of which only around 22 per year (or 6.5 percent) even mention the MDGs. Corresponding MDG references in papers by the Asian Development Bank and the Inter-American Bank are similarly low, ranging from around 1 to 2 percent of their respective annual totals. The lack of MDG-referencing research mirrors the limited attention in academic economics journals.

Figure 4. World Bank Policy Research Papers referencing MDGs, 2002-2014

5. Public SDG conversations are well ahead of MDG pace

There are signs that the emerging SDG discourse could already be much richer than the early years of the MDGs. The right side of Figure 5 counts SDG references, starting in 2012, for the same 12 global newspapers as in Figure 1. It shows that, during the first half of 2015, there were already more references to the SDGs than there were to the MDGs during in all but the peak years of 2005, 2008, and 2010. Depending on how global conversations evolve through the rest of this year, 2015 might well see more references to the SDGs than the MDGs saw during any year of their tenure. A caveat is that the majority of SDG stories through June 2015 have come from one publication, The Guardian, and so the intensity was not equally widespread. By January 2016, it will be possible to address the broader trends.

Figure 5. Annual MDG and SDG coverage across 12 major newspapers, 2000-2015*

The new global goals represent an agreed-upon set of norms to which international cooperation will aspire through to 2030. The policy challenges are even more ambitious than the MDGs.  In order to be achieved, they will require ample public and scientific debates. Those will need to diffuse much more broadly and deeply than the MDG-linked deliberations of the past 15 years. 

2015 is an unprecedented year for global decisionmaking. It is the culmination of three years of intergovernmental negotiations and the signing of three important agreements. First, the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, adopted at July’s Third International Conference on Financing for Development (FFD3), determined the magnitude for the realization of an ambitious Post-2015 Development Agenda. Then, on August 2, member states reached a historic agreement by which they committed to the modalities for Transforming our World over the next 15 years in areas of critical importance for humanity and nature. The resulting 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which includes the 17 integrated Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 associated targets to take over the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), was formally adopted by heads of state and government on September 25 at the United Nations. This landmark event sends a strong signal of determination ahead of the December Paris U.N. Convention on Climate Change (COP21) where the international community aspires to set a universal climate binding agreement to keep global warming below 2°C.

The FFD3 process that was concluded in Addis Ababa is a great success for Africa. Its negotiators mentioned in the outcome document instruments owned and led by Africa: African Union’s Agenda 2063 (the 50-year continental transformation blueprint), the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP), and the Program for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA), to name a few.[1] These African-led programs all advocate an “integrated, people-centered, and prosperous Africa, at peace with itself,” to quote the AU vision.

During the conference, the international community also decided to establish a Technology Facilitation Mechanism. It was launched in September at the United Nations in order to promote science, technology, and innovation in support of the SDGs. Other flagship measures include the creation of a Global Infrastructure Forum, the provision of a “social compact,” and the goal for official development assistance (ODA) to reach 0.2 percent of GNI to least developed countries (LDCs) by 2030.

However, FFD3 also brought some disappointments. For example, the common but differentiated responsibilities idea—a principle of international law establishing the responsibility for a state to address global environmental harmful effect according to its contribution to the problem—did not end up in the final text. But for the developing world, the biggest deception certainly came from the refusal to “democratize”[2] the global economic governance of international tax cooperation today overseen by the OECD. Officially, the European Union and the United States rejected the proposed new global tax body to oppose the formation of an umpteenth U.N. body. However, some assumed that it was an attempt to safeguard multinational companies vested interests. From an African perspective, this request would have helped spur domestic resource mobilization and combat illicit financial flows.

After a series of participatory regional consultations starting in 2011, the continent benefited from the thorough buy-in of its leadership at a very early stage. In May 2013, a high-level committee of heads of state and government produced the Common African Position (CAP) on the Post-2015 Development Agenda. The CAP was subsequently adopted by the countries of the African Union at the January 2014 Addis AU Summit. Then, in January 2015, an African group of negotiators was set up to stand on the frontline of the last stage of the intergovernmental negotiations on the agenda conducted in New York.

Indeed, Africa had a bigger voice than usual in the negotiations, with continental nationals holding key positions in the process: The U.N. president of the General Assembly (PGA), the co-facilitator of the intergovernmental negotiations, the chair of the G77+China (a like-minded coalition of 134 developing nations negotiating together), and the special advisor of the U.N. secretary-general for post-2015 development planning were all Africans.

By being proactive since the beginning of the Post-2015 agenda and FFD3 processes, and by leveraging all available opportunities, Africans have considerably strengthened their voice and provided quality input, thereby overcoming their main disadvantage—lack of capacity—for the time of the negotiations.

Thus, African countries, speaking with one voice, managed to incorporate their vision and programs into the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda. The U.N. Agenda now reflects the sub-regional dimension and regional economic integration, in line with Africa’s strategic thrusts that aim at making the eight Regional Economic Communities the building blocks of the continent. Africans also championed the mention of the inextricable correlation that exists between peace and security on the one hand, and development on the other. This nexus is particularly relevant in an African context, where both prevention and post-conflict approaches often have to be considered in sustainable development action.

The Common African Position has reaffirmed poverty eradication as an overarching goal for the continent and has strongly emphasized the need for a structural transformation of Africa that is people-centered. As a result, Africa’s No. 1 priority figures prominently in the new agenda under the commitment to eradicate poverty by 2030. The African call for productive capacities development was heard too: Indeed, economic growth, jobs, energy, industrialization, and innovation, among others, were introduced to the SDG package as a complement to human development and environmental protection.

To a lesser extent, the SDGs also reflect extra elements of importance for Africa, like the agri-business dimension, the relevance of trans-boundary water management, and the value addition potential of fisheries. However, other SDGs do not approach solutions from the African perspective: The agriculture sector is still mostly treated through the lens of hunger and malnutrition, rather than through agri-business and job opportunities for the youth.

Post-2015 and FFD3 negotiations confirmed the emergence of a strong and articulated African voice building on previous climate talks and the aid effectiveness experience. In fact, the European Center for Development Policy Management stated, “Africa is making significant strides on formulating a united front in its engagement with international partners over issues that are important not only to the continent of Africa, but the global system too. Increasingly, international actors and processes are coming to the realization that African countries are beginning to work together to create unique perspectives and positions that should be valued.”[3]

Besides the three dimensions of sustainable development (economic, social, environmental), the novelty of the new agenda is surely its universality. However, there is still a widespread feeling that the SDGs are not applicable to all but rather refer solely to developing countries in general and African countries in particular. It will be interesting to see how developed countries will tackle the implementation phase, especially with regard to the inequality, climate change, or sustainable consumption- and production-related goals.

Another success found within the SDG process was the inclusive process throughout, ensuring the participation of a diverse range of actors. Civil society systematically provided input during monthly interactive dialogues with major groups and other stakeholders. The U.N. held joint sessions with international financial institutions. Observers, regional organizations, academia, philanthropy, and the private sector were regularly involved, particularly in the High-Level Thematic Debates of the U.N. President of the General Assembly.

A solid multilateral and multi-stakeholder consensus was reached, which is a good omen for the local domestication of the global and aspirational SDGs and targets. Correlated with the coming indicator framework and the expected data revolution, it will be the basis for implementation, follow-up, and review of the new agenda. There is no doubt that the SDGs can be an excellent foundation for long-term sustainable solutions, should the continent maintain the coherence and alignment of the U.N. 2030 Agenda with the vision outlined in the AU Agenda 2063.

Note: This blog reflects the views of the authors only and does not reflect the views of the Africa Growth Initiative.

[1] Other notable Africa-led initiatives include the Africa50 Infrastructure Fund, Africa Power Vision, Sustainable Energy for All regional hub and Action Agenda and Investment Prospectus, Great Green Wall, regional integration, pastoralism, among others.

[2] To borrow the expression used by Winnie Byanyima, Oxfam International Executive Director, in HuffPost article “Addis Financing for Development Conference Failed in Many Ways, But the Fight for Tax Justice Continues,” dated July 2015.

[3] ECDPM Briefing Note N°74 “How Does Africa Speak with One Voice?” by Ramsamy, Knoll, Knaepen, and van Wyk, dated November 2014

Some 25 years ago, as a young student, I spent three months in the Guinean (Conakry) rainforest to find out if coffee farmers in the region fulfilled the eligibility criteria for joining the “Max Havelaar FairTrade Coffee” Scheme, the first Fairtrade label with a proper certification mark that guarantees that products have been traded under fair conditions. I was particularly interested in documenting the different price levels, from farm gate price and retail price to the export price, to assess what kind of return a “fair priced” coffee could bring to the farmers.

Following my field research, I wanted to compare my findings with the publicly reported official data. So I visited the local national statistical office in Nzérékore, the region's rain forest capital. After struggling to locate the office, I finally stumbled upon a nearly empty building. With no furniture, computers, or bookshelves in sight, I came across a man sitting behind a desk. On this desk was a book that contained data series, including some on coffee. I was curious to compare data samples and when I showed the officer my findings, he took out a pen, erased his price series, and copied in my own. Needless to say, I was quite perplexed and left the office shortly thereafter.

Experiencing the desperate state of data collection and, more broadly, National Statistical Offices in many parts of low-income countries, was an eye-opening experience. These sorts of issues were never covered in any course material.

As a junior development economist, you are trained on sampling issues, how to design questionnaires, what secondary sources one should use and general aspects of “data quality.” Data are seen as a “resource” feeding into our econometric modelling—we are looking for “instruments” to deal with endogeneity and are concerned about getting enough “high quality data” as time series to allow more robust analysis. The randomized control trial movement is a particular case in point, with lots of data collection to check whether or not a certain intervention has been successful. These data collection efforts are sometimes undertaken with national partners, sometimes not. The “how” and “who,” as well as the broader governance of data collection, matters for many development outcomes: Leaving them out of our studies risks undermining development efforts.  

One illustrative example: The largely donor-driven process in defining indicators and collecting data for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) led to the omission of those national statistical systems whose staff questioned the relevancy of the global indicators for national policies, possibly leading to less policy action on the ground. If we take as an example maternal mortality, we find that, in several developing regions, the large majority of data pertaining to MDG 5 is produced by international agencies through modelling, while in the developed countries this data comes from national authorities. To put it differently, in countries with the highest incidence of maternal mortality, the data are largely modeled, while in those where the problem is less severe we can rely on country data. Only recently has a movement around civil registration and vital statistical systems been created to address this important data gap.

Figure 1: MDG date availability, maternal mortality ratio

Source: United Nations Statistics Division. (2012). Data Availability by Series and MDG Region as of 2012 from http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/DataAvailability.aspx

Luckily, the issue of data and need to build national capacities has surged to the foreground of the development debate and is now framed as both a challenge and an opportunity, highlighting the possibilities of new data sources coming from mobile, social or geo-satellite sources (For a more balanced view see the United Nations report “A World that counts” and the PARIS21 “Road Map for a Country-Led Data Revolution”). The replicability movement in economic research has also led to a focus on making research data available to the public. Researchers now have to submit data dissemination plans when applying for data collection grants and initiatives, such as the Harvard Dataverse, which allows for easy documentation and sharing of research data. While this development is welcome, more needs to be done in development economics research.

To start with, there needs to be a shift in how we teach economics and the use of data.  Students should be taught how the data they use as secondary source is actually produced, why it is important to understand the different national and international actors, and about different data sources. These range from administrative and census data, to household surveys, as well as data gleaned from alternative sources like satellite imagery and other “big data” sources.

Second, researchers should become data producers not only for their own work, but also to contribute to the data stock within a country. Datasets that are produced through research should be made available to the country in which it was collected, especially  in countries where data are lacking. We need to invest in technical solutions that can help with codifying the data, uploading them, and making them interoperable. Quality checks also have to be run.

Third, researchers should team up with national statistical offices in data collection, visualization and dissemination. Strengthening the link between academia and the official statistical office could bring mutual benefits through knowledge transfer, reduced costs, and broader data dissemination.

The data revolution has grabbed the attention and imagination of development economics as a new source for analysis. So let’s use this momentum to address some of the often overlooked issues in how the data we use so often is actually produced. 

The year 2015 was a big one for global development policy debates, marking the end of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the launch of the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), also known as the “Global Goals.” But how much did major media pay attention?

Last September, Christine Zhang and I published a working paper that examined mentions of the MDGs across major English-language press and academic outlets from 2000 through 2014. We blogged highlights from the original paper here. 

More recently, we updated some of the results to account for last year’s major MDG-SDG debates and events. Figure 1 adds 2015 newspaper data on the MDGs and also includes SDG mentions over the entire time period.

Figure 1: MDG and SDG mentions across 12 major newspapers, 2000-2015

Note: The 12 newspapers included are the Los Angeles Times (USA), The New York Times (USA), USA Today, and The Washington Post (USA), the Financial Times (UK), The Guardian (UK), The Independent (UK), The Daily Telegraph (UK), The Economist (UK), The Globe and Mail (Canada), the South China Morning Post (Hong Kong SAR), and The Sydney Morning Herald (Australia). Source: LexisNexis, authors’ calculations.

Here are three key takeaways from the new graph:

• First, by measure of article counts, 2015 was the second most prominent year for media coverage of the interlinked MDG-SDG agendas. But it only saw 62 percent as much coverage as the MDGs received in 2005, the year of the U.N. Millennium Project’s final report (January), the Gleneagles G-8 summit (July), and the U.N. World Summit (September). 

• Second, global summits have consistently helped to ramp up media attention and debate. The years 2005, 2008, 2010, and 2015 all stand out as the top years for references—the same years in which the U.N. convened major summits linked to the MDGs and, in 2015, the SDGs. But U.N. summits do not guarantee attention. Notably, the 2012 Rio+20 summit that initially called for the SDGs did not cause a big splash in the media outlets examined.

• Third, recent years saw a discernible transition from MDG references to SDG references. By 2015, fully 41 percent of the relevant articles referenced only the SDGs, 30 percent mentioned both the SDGs and the MDGs, while only 29 percent mentioned the MDGs alone. 

To be clear, these results do not provide a complete assessment of MDG-SDG media references in recent years, especially because social media and other new digital technologies now account for such a large share of public debate. (Note that the graph also excludes developing country newspapers, some of which we examined in the original working paper and similarly updated with 2015 results, but those do not make much difference to the overall story.) Thus one should not consider Figure 1 a definitive analysis of whether SDG advocates were successful in their public outreach campaigns last year.  From a research perspective, the simple new-ness of “new media” renders long-term comparisons difficult. Restricting the data sample to print media offers one way to benchmark apples-to-apples coverage across the period of interest back to 2000.

That said, a seasoned media observer once suggested to me that traditional news outlets are inherently less connected to the bottom-up nature of emerging SDG conversations, and hence less likely to cover the SDGs accurately than new media channels in which user-generated content helps to drive the conversation. It’s an interesting hypothesis worth testing. 

At a minimum, 2015 was a significant year for public conversations about the MDGs and SDGs, even if it might not have matched the peak year of 2005. An interesting line of research could seek to explain why.  In any case, for analysts of the new SDGs, more sophisticated forms of global media benchmarking will undoubtedly be in order through to the new deadline of 2030. 

In 2015 the international community agreed on a set of ambitious sustainable development goals (SDGs) for the global society, to be achieved by 2030. One of the lessons that the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG s) has highlighted is the importance of a systematic approach to identify and sequence development interventions—policies, programs, and projects—to achieve such goals at a meaningful scale. The Chinese approach to development, which consists of identifying a problem and long-term goal, testing alternative solutions, and then implementing those that are promising in a sustained manner, learning and adapting as one proceeds—Deng Xiaoping’s “crossing the river by feeling the stones”—is an approach that holds promise for successful achievement of the SDGs.

Having observed the Chinese way, then World Bank Group President James Wolfensohn in 2004, together with the Chinese government, convened a major international conference in Shanghai on scaling up successful development interventions, and in 2005 the World Bank Group (WBG ) published the results of the conference, including an assessment of the Chinese approach. (Moreno-Dodson 2005). Some ten years later, the WBG once again is addressing the question of how to support scaling up of successful development interventions, at a time when the challenge and opportunity of scaling up have become a widely recognized issue for many development institutions and experts.

Since traditional private and public service providers frequently do not reach the poorest people in developing countries, social enterprises can play an important role in providing key services to those at the “base of the pyramid.”

In parallel with the recognition that scaling up matters, the development community is now also focusing on social enterprises (SEs), a new set of actors falling between the traditionally recognized public and private sectors. We adopt here the World Bank’s definition of “social enterprises” as a social-mission-led organization that provides sustainable services to Base of the Pyramid (BoP) populations. This is broadly in line with other existing definitions for the sector and reflects the World Bank’s primary interest in social enterprises as a mechanism for supporting service delivery for the poor. Although social enterprises can adopt various organizational forms—business, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and community-based organizations are all forms commonly adopted by social enterprises—they differ from private providers principally by combining three features: operating with a social purpose, adhering to business principles, and aiming for financial sustainability. Since traditional private and public service providers frequently do not reach the poorest people in developing countries, social enterprises can play an important role in providing key services to those at the “base of the pyramid.” (Figure 1)

Figure 1. Role of SE sector in public service provision

Social enterprises often start at the initiative of a visionary entrepreneur who sees a significant social need, whether in education, health, sanitation, or microfinance, and who responds by developing an innovative way to address the perceived need, usually by setting up an NGO, or a for-profit enterprise. Social enterprises and their innovations generally start small. When successful, they face an important challenge: how to expand their operations and innovations to meet the social need at a larger scale. 

Development partner organizations—donors, for short—have recognized the contribution that social enterprises can make to find and implement innovative ways to meet the social service needs of people at the base of the pyramid, and they have started to explore how they can support social enterprises in responding to these needs at a meaningful scale. 

The purpose of this paper is to present a menu of approaches for addressing the challenge of scaling up social enterprise innovations, based on a review of the literature on scaling up and on social enterprises. The paper does not aim to offer specific recommendations for entrepreneurs or blueprints and guidelines for the development agencies. The range of settings, problems, and solutions is too wide to permit that. Rather, the paper provides an overview of ways to think about and approach the scaling up of social enterprise innovations. Where possible, the paper also refers to specific tools that can be helpful in implementing the proposed approaches. 

Note that we talk about scaling up social enterprise innovations, not about social enterprises. This is because it is the innovations and how they are scaled up that matter. An innovation may be scaled up by the social enterprise where it originated, by handoff to a public agency for implementation at a larger scale, or by other private enterprises, small or large. 

This paper is structured in three parts: Part I presents a general approach to scaling up development interventions. This helps establish basic definitions and concepts. Part II considers approaches for the scaling up of social enterprise innovations. Part III provides a summary of the main conclusions and lessons from experience. A postscript draws out implications for external aid donors. Examples from actual practice are used to exemplify the approaches and are summarized in Annex boxes.

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