Did the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) make any difference? Perhaps no question is more important for assessing the results of global policy cooperation between 2000 and 2015. But this is a difficult question to answer empirically, because pathways of cause and effect are difficult to discern. At a minimum one can distinguish between the amount of acceleration and the amount of progress achieved on each relevant issue. We do this in our new study, “Change of pace: Accelerations and advances during the Millennium Development Goal era.” 

Authors

John McArthur

Senior Fellow - Global Economy and Development

@mcarthur

K

Krista Rasmussen

Research Analyst - Global Economy and Development, The Brookings Institution

The paper examines which trajectories changed, for better or worse, and to what scale of human consequence. Here we highlight three key findings:

1. At least 21 million extra lives were saved due to accelerated progress

Our results show that the clearest victories during the MDG era were in matters of life and death. We calculate the number of lives saved beyond “business-as-usual” pre-MDG trends on child mortality, maternal mortality, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis. We also look at malaria, which is predominantly a subset of child mortality. These indicators show evidence of major accelerations in rates of progress during the 2000s, with the exception of maternal mortality, which experienced more modest acceleration. The upshot is that somewhere between 21.0 million to 29.7 million more people are alive today than would have been the case if countries had continued their pre-MDG rates of progress. (The range depends mainly on whether we use child mortality trends from 1990-2000 or 1996-2001 as the pre-MDG reference period.)

Figure 1: Total lives saved between 2000/2001 and 2015 due to accelerated progress

As shown in Figure 1, approximately two-thirds of the lives saved were in sub-Saharan Africa, around a fifth were in China and India, and the remainder were in the rest of the developing world. Between 8.8 million to 17.3 million of the lives were saved due to faster progress on child mortality; 8.7 million due to expanded treatment for HIV/AIDS, 3.1 million due to declines in TB deaths, and approximately half a million due to improvements in maternal mortality.

2. Acceleration varied considerably across issues and geographies

One of the core tensions in assessing outcomes over the MDG period is to distinguish between the amount of progress achieved and changes in the rate of progress. For example, the U.N. celebrated improved access to drinking water as an early MDG success. But were countries already on course to achieve this as of 2000? We conducted many tests for differences in mean rates of progress (t-tests) and found that trends varied considerably across issues and geographies. Positive changes were concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa and low-income countries, as classified by the World Bank in 2000.

Figure 2 shows our estimate of the number of lives improved—or not—due to changes in trends on a range of indicators. The positive results here are that as many as 111 million more people completed primary school and 471 million extra people have been lifted out of extreme poverty as of 2013 (the most recent year with available data), compared to 1990s trends. However, for water and undernourishment, accelerations in the majority of developing countries were outweighed by slowdowns in the rate of progress in many populous countries, which generated negative overall numbers for our estimate of incremental lives improved. For sanitation, the aggregate figures are only modestly positive.

Figure 2: Millions of lives improved as of 2015—or not—due to accelerated progress since 2000

3. Low-income country acceleration versus middle-income country gains

Our findings highlight a major difference in trends among low-income countries (LICs) versus middle-income countries (MICs). Figure 3 illustrates this by plotting average (population-weighted) rates of progress for both LICs and MICs, when excluding India and China from the respective calculations. The vertical axis shows how much each group’s annual rate of progress changed before and after 2000: a ratio of 1 indicates no change, a ratio of 2 indicates a doubling in the rate of progress, and so forth. The horizontal axis measures each group’s relative amount of progress toward eliminating its respective problems from 1990 to 2015. The LICs are all somewhat above and to the left of MICs in the chart, indicating more acceleration but smaller relative gains. Meanwhile MICs tended to see larger relative gains but less acceleration, since they were already achieving steady progress prior to 2000.

Figure 3: Acceleration versus progress during the MDG era, by income group

Implications for SDGs?

Our estimates draw from available data at the time of writing, so results may be updated as future data revisions are released. In the meantime, the findings dispel some common myths about the MDGs. They show that, especially on matters of life and death, 2015 outcomes were not on track to happen anyhow. Some shifts were dramatic, and Africa was responsible for many of the greatest incremental gains, not simply China and India. However, outcomes on basic needs were mixed. The diversity of trends prompts clear questions of why: What differences in public and private action led to such different results across geographies and issues? Answering such questions is crucial if the world is going to have a shot at achieving the U.N.’s ambitious new Sustainable Development Goals for 2030.

Related Content

Developing Economies

Change of pace: Accelerations and advances during the Millennium Development Goal era

John McArthur and Krista Rasmussen

Wednesday, January 11, 2017

      

 

 

Amadou Sy, senior fellow and director of the Africa Growth Initiative, and Witney Schneidman, nonresident senior fellow at Brookings and senior international advisor for Africa at Covington & Burling LLP, examine the top priorities for Africa in 2017, as recently laid out in the Africa Growth Initiative’s annual Foresight Africa report.

“When I look at Africa, I see so many opportunities and so many challenges, but one thing that I find unique is that it’s a young continent, it’s the youngest continent, and the youthfulness is so vibrant,” says Sy. “There are so many opportunities that can be realized with the smart, appropriate investment in the youth by giving them jobs, and education, and training, and so on. So I’m looking forward to this new Africa, one that will be built by this young population.”

Schneidman says, “So, I am absolutely a believer in the Africa rising narrative. I think we have to be very careful how we use it, though, because the Africa rising narrative is not uniform, it does not speak to the reality of what’s happening across 54 countries. Some countries are doing much better than others, some sectors are doing much better than other sectors in countries that, by and large, are doing well. And it’s really a question of how the government adopts the kind of policies that really not only focus on the economic development equation, but are targeted at reducing the inequality of beneficiaries and those who don’t benefit…It’s difficult to know where to start the policy dialogue and how to look to make sure that growth is really wide-ranging and its benefits are wide ranging, as well.”

__________________________________________________________________________________

Show Notes:

• Report: Foresight Africa: Top priorities for the continent in 2017
• Event video: Foresight Africa: Top priorities for Africa in 2017
• Africa, Trump, infrastructure
• Ghana’s new president: Jobs, jobs, jobs
• Thunder is not yet rain: Sustaining progress towards realizing Africa’s vision

__________________________________________________________________________________

With thanks to audio producer Gaston Reboredo and producer Vanessa Sauter, and also thanks for additional support from Kelly Russo, Fred Dews, and Richard Fawal.

Subscribe to Brookings podcasts here or on iTunes, send feedback email to intersections@brookings.edu, and follow us and tweet us at @policypodcasts on Twitter.

Intersections is part of the Brookings Podcast Network.

      

 

 

“The best things in life are free,” says the old song. When it comes to the global commons – clean air, healthy oceans, conservation of diverse species – this is no longer true. We’ve abused the great systems of our planet for centuries and now it’s time to pay the bill.

Author

Homi Kharas

Senior Fellow and Deputy Director - Global Economy and Development

There are two ways of protecting the commons. The first is to reduce the human footprint. This was the early message of the Club of Rome in its famous The Limits to Growth (pdf) treatise, published in 1972. The second is to innovate technology or approaches.

Agenda 2030, and the consensus on the global goals, is all about the second way forward, where the key to success is to create bridges between environmentalists, who argue for the primacy of sustainability, and development practitioners who put people first.

It would be naive to dismiss the tensions between these communities, despite the fact that they share common goals. Everyone wants both prosperity for individuals and a healthy planet. But the tools that are used to try to achieve these aims often have conflicting effects.

The most obvious example of this tension is the divergent views on coal-fired energy plants. The low upfront financial costs of such plants make them appealing to many policymakers interested in economic growth, while the devastating environmental costs (in terms of both global climate change and domestic health hazards) make them anathema to environmentalists.

In this case, technology now provides a suitable alternative. In India, the cost of solar power may now be cheaper than coal. Win-win solutions based on renewables and energy efficiency can provide both growth and lower carbon emissions.

In other instances, however, technology is not the answer, at least not at current rates of adoption. The modern version of constraints to growth is the ambivalence of many environmentalists towards the emerging middle class in developing countries. People in this class consume more goods and services than poorer ones. They pollute and degrade more: plastic bags from their shopping; carbon emissions from their cars; degraded land from the food they waste; reduced water tables from irrigation needed to produce animal feed grain production; coral reef destruction from sun-screens used on vacations. The list is long.

The fundamental issue, then, is how to reconcile this massive middle class expansion with a healthy planet.

It is no use trying to fight against middle class progress. The economic and political forces are too strong. The middle class – now about 3 billion people – is growing more rapidly than at any other time in history, thanks to fast economic growth in China, India, and other Asian countries. It probably took 150 years from the start of the Industrial Revolution to create the first 1 billion middle class consumers, somewhere around 1985. The second billion took 21 years to cross the threshold; the third billion just 9 years. If the global economy recovers along the lines projected by the International Monetary Fund, 2 billion more will be added to the middle class by 2028 – a total of 5 billion people.

The fundamental issue, then, is how to reconcile this massive middle class expansion with a healthy planet. Appealing to people’s good nature will not work. Individuals do not see themselves and their normal daily habits as doing significant harm to the Earth. There is a large collective action failure – each individual thinks they can leave the problem to someone else to deal with – so few people change their behavior and habits. And when they do, the impact is small. In the US, a single person’s carbon emissions only decline by about 5% when he or she becomes more conscious of his or her carbon footprint and switches to using LED light bulbs and driving electric cars.

Equally, trying to use economic incentives like taxes and regulations could backfire if these are seen as harming prospects for growth and prosperity. The middle class may be sympathetic to the cause, but they also care deeply about their wallets. Data from the World Values Surveys suggest that many in the middle class are not prepared to pay higher taxes to support a better environment even within their own country, let alone globally.

There are, however, other ways through which the middle class impact on the global commons can be mitigated. In the long-run, a larger middle class can be a powerful force for halting population growth. Look at Europe today: its population growth rate is only about 0.2% per year. Indeed, almost all the world’s projected population growth is happening in places with small middle classes like Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The link between the middle class and population growth is clear. Middle class households are more educated and more urban. They invest more in their children. Their daughters go through secondary school and on to higher education in many places. This has a dramatic effect on fertility. A woman with no schooling has, on average, four to five more children than one who completes high school.

Added up across the world, the impact can be considerable. The United Nations, which puts out different scenarios for population, thinks the most likely global number for 2100 is 10.9 billion (compared to 7.4 billion today). But demographers at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Vienna figure that the population in 2100 could be only 9 billion people, if better education is taken into account.

This reduction by 2 billion shows what can happen if a package of access to schooling and family planning is made available to middle class households. In fact, total aid for education would be doubled if just one-eighth of the $100bn (£79.8bn) promised annually in climate aid was redirected to it: this would help build prosperity and protect the planet at the same time. Win-win propositions like this can help create bridges between the environmental and development communities – a coalition that is desperately needed to safeguard the global commons and achieve the global goals.

      

 

 

Alors que les perspectives d’avenir demeurent encourageantes pour un grand nombre de pays d’Afrique subsaharienne, combien les choses ont changé pour les pays exportateurs de pétrole !^[1] Avant 2014, ces derniers jouissaient d’un solde excédentaire moyen sur leurs comptes courants et parvenaient même à générer un petit excédent budgétaire public (figure 1.1). En 2014 cependant, les prix du pétrole ont chuté si brutalement qu’ils se sont retrouvés, début 2016, à leurs plus bas niveaux en dix ans. La baisse des recettes générées par les exportations pétrolières ayant réduit les recettes publiques qui en sont largement tributaires, les besoins des États en matière de financement ont augmenté. Les pays exportateurs de pétrole d’Afrique subsaharienne se retrouvent désormais confrontés au « double déficit » de leurs comptes courants et de leurs budgets gouvernementaux.

La difficulté réside dans le fait que les besoins de financement extérieur augmentent au moment même où les conditions financières se durcissent. La hausse des taux d’intérêt américains d’une part provoque une augmentation des coûts de refinancement et des coûts des nouveaux emprunts et d’autre part freine la quête du rendement et réduit l’appétit pour le risque. Cette situation a poussé les investisseurs à s’aventurer dans certains marchés frontières, dont ceux d’Afrique. Les flux de capitaux à destination des pays exportateurs de pétrole peuvent s’affaiblir davantage ou, voire pire, se renverser. En raison de ces conditions financières plus difficiles, un ajustement national décisif et crédible reste le seul choix politique possible afin de satisfaire les besoins grandissants en matière de financement. Malheureusement, les efforts d’ajustement déployés jusqu’à présent par les pays exportateurs de pétrole ont été plutôt hésitants. Face à des réserves appauvries et à des conditions financières plus difficiles, ils ont été lents et ont parfois fait preuve de réticence à l’heure de mettre en œuvre des ajustements macroéconomiques fort nécessaires.

Author

Amadou Sy

Nonresident Senior Fellow - Global Economy and Development, Africa Growth Initiative

@ASYBrookings

2017 est donc bien le bon moment pour utiliser les chocs pétroliers à la fois pour mettre en œuvre la bonne panoplie de politiques macroéconomiques et pour mieux positionner les économies tributaires du pétrole afin qu’elles accomplissent d’importants progrès sur la voie des objectifs de développement durable (ODD). Il n’y a pas d’autre choix possible, étant donné que les cours du pétrole, d’après les prédictions, resteront faibles pendant une longue période (en dépit du fait qu’ils aient récemment augmenté). Des ajustements à court terme ne peuvent être qu’un « médicament antidouleur » et des politiques sectorielles, notamment au niveau de l’agriculture, seront nécessaires pour diversifier les économies riches en pétrole et accélérer leur transformation structurelle. Le financement ne sera qu’un aspect de l’équation et la génération de recettes supplémentaires par le biais de l’économie non basée sur le pétrole est l’option qu’il convient d’exercer. Les rentes pétrolières étant désormais appauvries, le temps est venu d’accélérer la cadence des réformes exigeant un financement réduit, comme l’efficacité des dépenses engagées. Les décideurs politiques auront besoin d’une bonne combinaison de volonté politique, communication efficace et participation du secteur privé et autres parties prenantes. Le contrat social mis en place pendant les années prospères devrait être redéfini.

Les pays exportateurs de pétrole ont des besoins de financement accrus

Malheureusement, et bien que les cours pétroliers se soient quelque peu redressés, les perspectives demeurent inquiétantes et le financement extérieur sera difficile à obtenir l’an prochain.

Le cycle de hausse et de baisse des cours du pétrole a fait naître des déséquilibres macroéconomiques qui devront être financés. Les fluctuations des cours du pétrole témoignent de la brutalité du choc subi par les exportateurs de pétrole. Le cours de la matière première a reculé de 112 $ le baril en mi-2014 à moins de 39 $ le baril début janvier 2016. La chute des cours du pétrole a fait baisser les recettes à l’exportation, engendré une détérioration des soldes des comptes courants et placé les devises sous pression. La figure 1.1 illustre la manière dont l’actuel déficit des comptes courants des pays exportateurs de pétrole est entré en territoire négatif entre 2013 et 2014. Ces pays sont parvenus à produire un excédent de comptes courants correspondant à 3,8 % du PIB en 2013, un excédent qui s’est transformé en un déficit de 0,6 % en 2014 pour continuer à se creuser en 2015 en atteignant 4,7 % du PIB. La figure 1.1 montre également comment les soldes fiscaux ont empiré au fil du temps.

Le vaste choc pétrolier a donné lieu à une recrudescence du financement et la question fondamentale est maintenant de savoir dans quelle mesure les financements extérieurs seront disponibles en 2017. Malheureusement, et bien que les cours pétroliers se soient quelque peu redressés, les perspectives demeurent inquiétantes et le financement extérieur sera difficile à obtenir l’an prochain.

Figure 1.1. Pays exportateurs de pétrole en Afrique subsaharienne : Les chiffres du « double-déficit » (en pourcentage du PIB)

Comme l’on peut s’y attendre, les pays exportateurs de pétrole subsahariens risquent un «double-déficit» en raison de la faiblesse persistante des cours des matières premières. En fait, les déficits des comptes courants, qui sont passés des soldes positifs aux soldes négatifs entre 2013 et 2014 sont restés négatifs au cours de ces deux dernières années. Parallèlement, le budget de l’État est en hausse depuis 2013. En 2017, les décideurs politiques demeureront confrontés à de sombres perspectives.

Sources: IMF Regional Economic Outlook (October 2016), IMF Primary Commodity Price System. Available at: https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/reo/2016/afr/eng/sreo1016.htm.

Les réserves internationales se sont appauvries et la disponibilité des financements extérieurs est plus limitée

Le niveau des réserves internationales sert de tampon protecteur contre la chute des cours du pétrole, mais ce tampon est toutefois limité. Les pays exportateurs de pétrole de la région épuisent leurs réserves internationales et, comme l’a remarqué la Banque mondiale (2016), l’appauvrissement cumulé des réserves internationales des pays exportateurs de pétrole de la région entre fin juin 2014 et mars 2016 est de plus de trente pourcent. Le FMI (2016) remarque également que ces pays ont financé environ deux-tiers du déficit de leurs comptes courants en puisant dans les réserves internationales à hauteur de 1,5 % de leur PIB chaque année depuis 2014.

Rien que durant le premier semestre 2016, un certain nombre de pays exportateurs de pétrole, dont l’Angola, le Gabon et la République du Congo ont fait l’objet d’un déclassement leurs notations de crédit.

Les emprunts étrangers peuvent également aider à financer l’approfondissement du déficit des comptes courants des pays exportateurs de pétrole. Comme indiqué plus haut cependant, il devient de plus en plus difficile et onéreux d’accéder au marché obligataire international. En 2016, seuls l’Afrique du sud et le Ghana sont parvenus à exploiter les marchés obligataires internationaux, l’Afrique du sud ayant levé 750 millions de dollars US à un taux de rendement de 9,25 pourcent après avoir reporté l’émission en raison des prix plus élevés exigés par les investisseurs. ^[2] Il convient de noter qu’à la différence des pays exportateurs de pétrole comme le Nigeria et l’Angola, le Ghana bénéficiait déjà d’un programme du FMI et avait déjà démarré son programme d’ajustement macroéconomique national.

Comme indiqué par la Banque mondiale (2016), la cadence des déclassements des notations de crédit s’est accélérée depuis un an. Rien que durant le premier semestre 2016, un certain nombre de pays exportateurs de pétrole, dont l’Angola, le Gabon et la République du Congo ont fait l’objet d’un déclassement leurs notations de crédit. Des taux d’intérêt plus élevés et des notations de crédit plus basses compliquent les efforts déployés par ces pays en vue d’accéder aux marchés internationaux. La figure 1.3, qui illustre les écarts de rendement et les notations des obligations souveraines au 15 novembre 2016 (avant le déclassement du Mozambique tombé de la catégorie « CC » à la catégorie « défaut restrictif » par Fitch Ratings), montre que les coûts engagés par les pays exportateurs de pétrole (et de matières premières) pour émettre des titres obligataires sont relativement plus élevés. L’émission d’obligations internationales prévue par le Nigeria, la première du pays depuis 2013, fera office de test décisif pour les autres pays exportateurs de pétrole qui cherchent à se financer à l’extérieur de leurs frontières.

Figure 1.3. Écarts des rendements souverains comparés aux notations de crédit

Les coûts d’émission de la dette des pays exportateurs de matières premières africains ont tendance à être plus élevés. Le graphique ci-dessous montre la relation négative existant entre les notations de crédit et les écarts de rendement des obligations souveraines. Comparés aux autres pays en voie de développement et émergents, les pays d’Afrique paient un écart plus élevé pour un risque de défaut de même niveau, tel que mesuré par les notations de crédit.

Note : Les écarts de rendement sont ceux du 15 Novembre 2016. Le score moyen des notations de crédit fait allusion aux notations moyennes de Fitch, Moody’s et S&P. Les scores numériques correspondent aux catégories de notations de crédits suivantes : 7=A, 6=BBB/Baa, 4=B, 3=CCC/Caa et 2-CC/Ca.

Source : Bloomberg L.P., J.P. Morgan EMBI Global

Les entrées de capitaux (investissements directs étrangers (IDE) et investissements de portefeuille) sont les outils généralement utilisés pour financer les déficits des comptes courants (les premiers étant à préférer en raison de leur plus grande stabilité), mais certains éléments indiquent que les investisseurs sont moins enclins à investir dans la plupart des pays exportateurs de pétrole que dans d’autres pays d’Afrique. Ainsi, la Banque mondiale (2016) constate que les entrées de capitaux ont ralenti dans la région. Dans le cas du Nigeria, les entrées de capitaux ont reculé de 55 pourcent au premier trimestre 2016, alors que les sorties de capitaux ont plus que doublé.

Dans un tel contexte de resserrement des financements extérieurs, quelles politiques les pays exportateurs de pétrole africains peuvent-ils mettre en œuvre ?

Un ajustement crédible et décisif en 2017 est la principale option politique possible pour les pays exportateurs de pétrole

Le remède traditionnel pour les pays exportateurs de pétrole en proie à un choc pétrolier négatif est une combinaison de dépréciation de la monnaie et de resserrement monétaire (afin de limiter les pressions inflationnistes). En outre, les entreprises publiques et le secteur financier sont étroitement surveillés pour éviter toute mauvaise surprise, comme la matérialisation de passifs quasi-budgétaires et d’emprunts non productifs plus couteux résultant des expositions au pétrole et au gaz et des asymétries de monnaies. Les politiques actuelles peuvent être utilisées pour rendre le remède plus facile à digérer. Lorsque ces dernières sont trop faibles, c’est à des institutions comme le FMI, la Banque africaine de développement et la Banque mondiale, sans oublier les bailleurs de fonds bilatéraux dont la Chine, qu’il faut demander d’apporter une contribution (lorsque la conjoncture économique locale le permet).

Néanmoins, à la différence des économies plus diversifiées, les économies tributaires du pétrole sont comparables à des pétroliers, dans le sens où elles sont difficiles à redresser rapidement.

Néanmoins, à la différence des économies plus diversifiées, les économies tributaires du pétrole sont comparables à des pétroliers, dans le sens où elles sont difficiles à redresser rapidement. Il n’en reste pas moins crucial de mettre en œuvre rapidement et de manière crédible un mix de politiques adéquat. Malheureusement, les pays exportateurs de pétrole d’Afrique ne sont globalement pas parvenus à gérer cette situation difficile aussi rapidement et décisivement que nécessaire.

La lenteur de l’ajustement des taux de change est rendue manifeste non seulement par l’appauvrissement des réserves internationales des pays exportateurs de pétrole africains, mais aussi par la rareté des devises (au Nigeria, par exemple, il devient de plus en plus difficile de se procurer des dollars US) et le vaste fossé séparant les marchés parallèles et les taux de change officiels comme en Angola et au Nigeria. Les résultats de l’exécution budgétaire montrent que de nombreux pays n’ont pas réussi à contenir leurs dépenses courantes ou à poursuivre leurs dépenses en capital (comme le Nigeria qui a cherché à les utiliser en tant que politique anticyclique). Dans un grand nombre de pays, la dette publique a augmenté et une part plus importante des recettes en baisse est désormais affectée au service de la dette. Ainsi, le FMI (2016) constate que la dette publique a fortement augmenté chez les pays exportateurs de pétrole, avec une progression de vingt points de pourcentage du PIB depuis 2013 (même si le niveau d’origine de cette dette était faible au Nigeria). Les arriérés publics ont également augmenté et certains gouvernements ont même eu recours aux banques centrales pour se financer. De nombreuses raisons expliquent l’absence de mise en œuvre d’un mix de politiques adéquat en temps opportun, notamment le traitement du choc pétrolier comme un choc provisoire et non pas permanent, les longs retards de coordination entre les ministères et d’exécution et les difficultés au niveau de la gestion de l’économie politique des réformes.

En 2017, le temps est venu d’accélérer la mise en œuvre du programme de mobilisation des ressources nationales.

L’actuel choc et ses conséquences négatives sur les économies et la vie des citoyens des pays exportateurs de pétrole africains ont cependant un côté positif, dans la mesure où ils peuvent offrir une occasion de « réparer la machine ». Ainsi, la forte baisse des cours du pétrole a mis en évidence la fragilité de l’actuel modèle de croissance. La transformation structurelle n’est pas solidement ancrée et peu de progrès ont été accomplis en matière de diversification des économies et de dépendance excessive à l’égard des recettes de l’exportation de pétrole. En 2017, le temps est venu d’accélérer la mise en œuvre du programme de mobilisation des ressources nationales, tant proclamée dans le Programme d’action d’Addis Abeba, et d’améliorer la fiscalité de l’économie non pétrolière, de prendre en considération l’avantage de relever le taux de la TVA (taxe sur la valeur ajoutée) et de revoir les exemptions fiscales et les subventions mal ciblées. 2017 est également la bonne année pour garantir que les dépenses en capital (qui demeurent nécessaires pour financer l’important déficit infrastructurel) porteront leurs fruits et soutiendront réellement la croissance. 2017 est la bonne année pour revoir la manière dont les dépenses courantes de l’économie pétrolière faisaient partie d’un contrat social inefficace en vertu duquel la manne pétrolière était censée faire augmenter la masse salariale et les dépenses publiques en biens et services.

2017 est la bonne année pour réexaminer le rôle du secteur privé et du secteur financier en tant que moteurs de la croissance générale au-delà de leur traditionnelle dépendance à l’égard des marchés publics et des revenus pétroliers et gaziers. Au niveau de l’économie pétrolière, l’État joue trop souvent le rôle de remède universel contre tous les maux et évince, voire même freine, le secteur privé. 2017 est la bonne année pour aplanir le terrain et redéfinir le rôle de l’État et ses domaines d’intervention, notamment la réduction des coûts d’exploitation et la mise en place d’une infrastructure adéquate en vue de stimuler la croissance et la compétitivité tirées par le secteur privé. De telles mesures font également partie du nouveau contrat social nécessaire.

2017 est la bonne année pour intensifier l’amélioration des institutions en vue de compléter les efforts de macro-stabilisation et poser les bases d’une croissance durable et inclusive. La mauvaise gouvernance a trop souvent détruit l’efficacité des dépenses publiques pour améliorer les résultats et nourrir la croissance. Une bonne gouvernance est également cruciale au regard du programme de mobilisation des revenus nationaux. Les travaux récents montrent que la bonne gouvernance est plus pertinente pour lever des recettes fiscales que pour attirer des investissements directs étrangers. Ceci est important, car les recettes fiscales constituent généralement la plus grande source de financement pour le développement.^[3]

2017 est aussi une bonne année pour passer sérieusement en revue le contrat social des pays exportateurs de pétrole. Les dépenses de protection sociale sont parfois très faibles dans ces pays et doivent être réévaluées. Au bout du compte, dans quelle mesure les pauvres ont-ils réellement bénéficié du cycle de hausse des cours du pétrole ? Maintenant que l’heure des ajustements est arrivée, quelle part de leurs coûts sont-ils censés assumer ? 2017 est le bon moment pour mettre en place les moyens nécessaires à la mise en œuvre des interventions ciblées et à la poursuite des mesures de protection sociale en vue de soulager les effets de l’ajustement macroéconomique nécessaire. Ainsi, l’augmentation de la TVA, qui est une taxe régressive, doit être accompagnée d’une compensation bien ciblée des segments de population les plus pauvres.

Les décideurs politiques des pays exportateurs de pétrole doivent adopter une stratégie à trois volets qui sera axée de manière crédible et décisive sur les ajustements macro-économiques, favorisera la croissance générale et réexaminera le contrat social. Ces objectifs sont de la plus haute importance à ce stade et il est nécessaire de résoudre les problématiques à court terme pour éviter de mettre la croissance à moyen terme en danger.

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Références

Fonds monétaire international (FMI). 2016. « Regional Economic Outlook: Sub-Saharan Africa: Multispeed Growth (Octobre 2016) ». Washington, D.C.: Fonds monétaire international. Disponible à : https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/reo/2016/afr/eng/pdf/sreo1016.pdf.

Sy, Amadou N.R. et Mariama Sow. 2016. « Domestic Resource Mobilization and External Financing: When does governance matter? Evidence from sub-Saharan Africa.» Document de travail de l’Initiative pour la croissance en Afrique. Brookings Institution. Disponible à : https://www.brookings.edu/research/domestic-resource-mobilization-and-external-financingwhen-does-governance-matter/.

Banque mondiale. 2016. Africa’s Pulse, No. 14, Octobre 2016. Washington, D.C.: World Bank Group. Disponible à : https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/25097.

      

 

 

Climate impacts on water are felt at every corner of the globe. From drought in California and a shrinking Colorado River to limited access to safe and clean drinking water in emerging economies, concerns about water are increasingly urgent. Addressing the water crisis facing the United States and other nations requires innovative, bipartisan ideas for how to alleviate water challenges, bolster resource security, and foster sustainable economic growth.

On March 28, the Cross-Brookings Initiative on Energy and Climate and the William S. Boyd School of Law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, will host a half-day conference on key issues in water policy. This event celebrates the launch of the new Brookings Press book The Water Problem: Climate Change and Water Policy in the United States, edited by UNLV/Brookings Senior Fellow Pat Mulroy.

Following an opening keynote conversation from former U.S. Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt, Mulroy will moderate a panel discussion on domestic water infrastructure and regulatory reform. A second panel of experts will analyze issues facing global water security, economics, and geopolitics, including regional dynamics in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and China. Near the end of each panel, moderators will open up to audience Q&A.

      

 

 

This week the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) launched its 2016 Human Development Report entitled Human Development for Everyone. The report takes stock of the global progress toward meeting human development objectives—as envisioned in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development—paying particular attention to people who face distinct deprivations and challenges to realizing basic human development. It also proposes policy options for governments and global institutions to address persisting deprivations and achieve inclusive human development.

Figure 1: Regional trends in Human Development Index values

Source: UNDP, Human Development Report (2016).

According to the report, recent trends in human development offer hope that positive change is occurring although there is much work still to be done. Reflecting growing incomes and advancements in education and health, levels of human development—measured using Human Development Index (HDI) values—have gradually improved in all regions of the world over the period from 1990 to 2015, as seen in Figure 1. However, the report also notes that aggregate HDI values obscure unequal concentrations of well-being within regions and countries and do not necessarily reflect the well-being of large proportions of the population. Another measure, the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index (IDHI), takes into account the effects of inequality on human development (as measured by the HDI). According to the IDHI, approximately 22 percent of the world’s human development is lost due to inequality, suggesting that unequal distribution of capabilities, access to basic services, and opportunities are major obstacles to achieving universal human development. Sub-Saharan Africa has the most significant inequality-induced human development losses at 32 percent, the report indicates.

Furthermore, systematic patterns of deprivation are visible among certain populations. For example, women in all regions of the world have consistently lower HDI values than men do. The Gender Development Index (GDI), which measures differences in HDI estimates for women and men, reveals that the largest disparities are evident in South Asia (17.8 percent), Arab states (14.4 percent), and sub-Saharan Africa (12.3 percent). In addition, Figure 2 suggests that people in rural areas are much more likely to be multidimensionally poor than people in urban areas—especially in sub-Saharan Africa, where the share of people in rural areas who are multidemensionally poor (74 percent) is more than double the share in urban areas (31 percent). As countries strive to improve their human development outcomes, the report argues that disadvantaged groups must have equal choices and opportunities in order for everyone to benefit from social and economic advancement.

Figure 2: People in rural areas are far more likely than people in urban areas to be multidimensionally poor

Source: UNDP, Human Development Report (2016).

Moving forward, the report argues that “time is of the essence” in sub-Saharan Africa as countries attempt to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including eliminating poverty and hunger and achieving gender equality, by 2030. Figure 3 shows the annual proportionate rates of change needed for the region to meet the SDG targets related to education, poverty, and under-five mortality based on the year that the region begins taking action. For example, to meet the SDG target of eliminating extreme poverty, countries will need to reduce extreme poverty at a rate of 10 percent a year between 2015 and 2030. However, if they wait until 2018 to take action on extreme poverty, the rate would increase to 13 percent a year, or if they wait until 2027 to begin their interventions, the rate would quadruple to 42 percent a year.

Figure 3: Reaching everyone—time is of the essence in sub-Saharan Africa

      

 

 

In 2015, all 193 countries signed on to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030, setting a broad and bold agenda for reducing poverty, promoting inclusive prosperity, and sustaining the environment.

On April 6, the Global Economy and Development program at Brookings will co-host a panel discussion along with the United Nations Foundation on the role of the private sector in global sustainable development, with opening remarks from Lord Mark Malloch-Brown. Lord Malloch-Brown chairs the Business and Sustainable Development Commission, which recently released the “Better Business, Better World” report. The report makes the case that, not only do the SDGs need the private sector, but business needs the SDGs too. Specifically, the report argues that sustainable business models could open economic opportunities worth up to $12 trillion and increase employment in the developing world by up to 380 million jobs by 2030. After the discussion, the panelists will take audience questions.

      

 

 

In January, the Global Economy and Development program at the Brookings Institution and World Vision convened two dozen experts to explore how to approach state fragility. Fragile states, or countries with weak governance capacities, are the most susceptible to large-scale crises that cause massive human suffering, spread the infection of instability and drain national wealth. Here we discuss the key issues raised at that meeting that need further exploration.

Authors

George Ingram

Senior Fellow - Global Economy and Development

@GMIngramIV

Jonathan Papoulidis

Executive Advisor on Fragile States - World Vision

Visiting Scholar, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies - Stanford University

jpapoulidis

The Stakes

Roadblock to the SDGs?

The development community—both those in political and economic development and those who work on humanitarian relief—has yet to fully confront the fragility roadblock to reducing global poverty. While most countries are on a path to reduce poverty through economic growth, the lack of progress in a group of unstable, fragile countries will prevent the world from achieving the 2030 “leave no one behind” objectives set forth in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Estimates put 80 percent of global extreme poverty in fragile states by around 2030. To remove this roadblock, we must attach to the SDGs a new urgency to solve collective problems of understanding, action, and financing both within fragile countries and in developed countries.

Framing Fragility

What is the scope of fragility?

Fragile states do not respond well to the appellation. The World Bank and Fund for Peace list of 50 fragile states includes countries that are unstable today and others that might become unstable. Per the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development fragility framework, they are fragile for many different reasons where topline risks outweigh domestic capacities to manage them. Views on fragility extend over the political environment, conflict and terrorism, poverty and economic growth, and rules stability.

The new OECD report States of Fragility 2016 presents a typology of fragility—political, societal, economic, environmental, security—that encompasses a “whole-of-society” breadth of fragility from conflict and disasters to destitution and high rates of hunger, illiteracy, and maternal and infant mortality. The report has made clear that tackling fragility, therefore, requires a “whole of government” approach—both within developed countries and in fragile countries to rally political will, conduct joint assessments, pool resources, and partner with multiple stakeholders.

Whole of Government

Engaging state and society?

State building efforts have often gone wrong by defining “whole-of-government” as top-down and highly centralized. State building must improve government capacity so that the state can legitimately respond to societal needs. The report U.S. Leadership and the Challenge of State Fragility by the Fragility Study Group rightly identifies fragility as “the failure to forge a minimally inclusive, legitimate, and accountable compact between the state and society.” A dual focus on state building and the social contract must connect the priorities and practices of diplomacy, defense, and development to arrive at durable solutions to conflict, unchecked natural disasters, and extreme poverty. Yet, because fragility is large and complex, there needs to be a broad theory of change to simplify and guide collective efforts to strengthen the state and social contract, deliver public goods, and manage risks that might disrupt progress and spiral out of control.

Fragility and Resilience

What is “from fragility to resilience?”

Although some have found the prevailing resilience discourse too thin on political fragility, the development community’s recent “fragility-to-resilience” frame pays close attention to the critical role of the social contract between government and society, political economy analysis, and the need to compensate for weak formal institutions and low social cohesion. More joint efforts are needed to further advance a distinctive fragility-to-resilience approach and take it from theory to practice.

The starting point is fragility, which begins with analysis of root causes like broken social contracts, low social cohesion, and weak governing institutions. Risks and vulnerabilities focus on how those root causes may affect the economic, social, political, security, and physical infrastructure of a society. Resilience envelopes the whole process and identifies the adaptive solutions and end goal.

The important thing is for the analysis to be across disciplines (and across government silos) so solutions are built on the interconnectedness of the various risks, fragilities, and adaptive capacities. The U.N. secretary-general’s report for the World Humanitarian Summit ambitiously advances a resilience agenda in its  call for local governments, civil society, and the private sector to join forces with international partners from the peace and security, development, environment, and relief communities to collectively map risks, create a problem statement, and develop a plan to leverage existing capacities. While skepticism may exist on this level of effort, the aid community has experimented with similar approaches for over a decade, often reinventing the wheel without the benefit of a global doctrine or consolidated lessons and good practice on multi-stakeholder coordination.

Institutions and Social Capital

How to use local institutions when they are so weak? How to build relations between the state and civil society? How to create social capital and cohesion among groups?

Most in the development community agree on the importance of local ownership and the role of local institutions. But there is not a recognized path forward when local institutions are weak. The 2016 OECD peer review of U.S. assistance criticizes the U.S. for dealing mainly with non-state actors and not engaging (even without direct funding) in state building and systems strengthening, especially weak systems. On the flipside, many multilateral banks and fragile countries prefer a focus on repairing the formal sector, when there would be considerable gains made by giving attention to the informal sector.

The right approach is to work with both formal and informal institutions, looking for ways to strengthen and connect the best opportunities. The evolving concept of social capital provides a guide for resilience in fragile countries, calling for efforts to strengthen collective support within communities (bonding), across them (bridging), and between communities and government (linking). Although larger cross-disciplinary processes may be needed to solve collective action and resource problems, per the U.N. secretary-general’s report, those processes must enable the tasks of strengthening social capital and promoting social contracts in fragile countries. These efforts are what drive the shift from fragility to resilience.  They are difficult, iterative, and decades long.

What are the case studies of success and failure in working with fragile states?

There is need for a collective stocktaking of the myriad of individual projects. We need to know what success looks like, which requires a theory of change for moving from fragility to resilience. Small, unambitious projects can have high ratings, but will they get to the root causes and deliver at scale?

In addition, the goal posts must be widened to include more of the development community’s experience in fragile states, instead of only that of humanitarian, peace, and security communities. The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) and U.S. Agency for International Development have a wealth of experience in reducing poverty and improving governance in fragile states, as does the World Bank and other donors.   We need to guide more adaptive programs for reducing conflict, mitigating disaster, and ending poverty, rather than only managing conflict and transitioning out of emergency.

The role of the private Sector

What interest does the private sector have in reducing instability, in building resilience?

There is a shared interest between government and the private sector in the stability of countries, avoiding conflict and pandemics, and reducing global “bads” such as terrorism and trafficking. Companies are finding a market at the bottom of the pyramid, and foreign investment is on the rise in fragile states. Of the 1600 USAID public-private partnership since 2001, one-third are in the 50 countries on the list of fragile states. Northern and southern hemisphere companies have an interest in, and can contribute to, stability of fragile countries. Northern multinational companies in resource extraction, consumer goods, and technology enter fragile markets to find the resources and grow their consumer markets. Southern companies may be more adept, have more relevant experience, and better understand the market potential in fragile states.

What is the role of government in subsidizing and supporting private sector engagement in fragile states?

Since private sector activity is critical to economic growth and stability, donors should reduce the risk for private investment by providing incentives such as political risk insurance, guaranteeing finance, and equity and angel capital. The World Bank’s Facility for Conflict-Affected and Fragile Economies, part of the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, has been a step in the right direction.

Conditionality or Reward

Conditionality or reward success and progress?

On balance, the history of conditioning aid is not good. The MCC has pioneered an alternative approach of rewarding progress. But even its compacts contain an element of conditionality and can be suspended or terminated for failure to fulfill conditions. The New Deal for Fragile States has tried a “bargain” approach, but neither the donors nor the G7+ countries have yet to live up to the bargain. Is there a “resilience” approach that avoids the one-sided nature of conditionality and offers both parties some assurance that the other will live up to the accord? Could this be based on shared risks assessments, more blended capacities to link formal and informal sectors, and whole-of-government and whole-of-society approaches focused on the social contract and social capital?

U.S. Interests in a Multi-Polar World

How to convince policymakers of the importance of fragility and resilience?

Selling points for donor engagement in fragile states are heavily pitched as means to contain security threats. But there is also a case for the long-term potential of frontier and emerging markets, which the private sector is acknowledging through its investment. Beyond this is the case that in the coming multi-polar world, emerging powers will continue to build alliances with fragile states for their resources and markets, to win them over to their worldview, to gain votes in the U.N., and to push back against established power structures.

China is playing a dominant role of political influence and investment in fragile states, with other powers such as India, Russia, Brazil, Turkey, South Africa, and the regional development banks all increasing their engagement. Fragile states should be viewed as an opportunity for the U.S. to form new alliances and networks and leverage existing ones; otherwise, emerging multi-polar networks will pose a challenge to what a retired Admiral recently referred to as the “global operational system” that has been shaped by the U.S. security, economic, cultural, and worldview order. Unilateral military, economic, and political interventions by the U.S. in fragile states will become exponentially more difficult where the operating system no longer supports these activities.

      

 

 

The 2015 International Conference on Financing for Development in Addis Ababa was noteworthy in its charge that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) need the business community—the new set of global goals (SDGs) will be achieved by 2030 only with inordinate levels of private finance and the business and management skills of the private sector. 

Author

George Ingram

Senior Fellow - Global Economy and Development

@GMIngramIV

Business Says It Needs the SDGs!

Better Business, Better World is the report of the Business & Sustainability Development Commission, chaired by Mark Malloch-Brown and comprised of leaders of business and civil society. This concise, well-written report (which will be the topic of discussion at a Brookings public event on April 6) lays out the business case for the SDGs. It explains why corporations will benefit from factoring the global goals into their business strategies. In doing so, it also lays the foundation for donor agencies and civil society engaging the private sector.

The report identifies a $12 trillion market for achieving just four of the 2030 goals—food and agriculture, cities (investments such as housing, transportation, and water), energy and materials, and health and well-being—that would produce 380 million jobs. Factoring the SDGs into business strategies will open new business opportunities, introduce efficiencies and innovation, and improve reputations.

SDGs in Corporate Strategies

The business community is not just talking about the SDGs. Some corporations integrated elements of the content of the SDGs before there was such a rubric. Following the issuance of Better Business, Better World, I made an inquiry of a handful of U.S. multinational corporations. What I found is that these corporations are integrating specific social and environmental impacts of their operations and products into their business strategies. Today the SDGs provide a frame of reference for these considerations. Some corporations are integrating specific SDGs into their business plans. Others are not using the SDG terminology but are embedding the content of specific SDGs into their business and corporate social responsibility strategies and publically reporting against them.

Taking a step further, investors can now bet on the SDGs. The Solactive Sustainable Development Goals World Index tracks the market performance of 50 companies assessed to be operating in line with the SDGs. The World Bank has recently announced a bond issue linked to the Solactive Index.

A report by The Washington Post dramatically highlights the extent to which the business community is inculcating social and environmental impact into strategies and business activities and is sometimes ahead of public policy. Apple, Intel, and other corporations are objecting to the administration and congressional effort to rollback section 1502 of Dodd-Frank that requires corporations to verify that their suppliers are not purchasing conflict minerals. They assert they will continue to verify their supplies even if the law is repealed.

Beyond the Business Case

The Oxfam Raising the Bar report argues that corporations have to go beyond the business case because, at times, the business interest and the sustainability interest will be in conflict. The report posits, “Companies should base their engagement (with the SDGs) on their own impacts (on the SDGs), align their core business strategies with the SDGs and work with others toward a system-level change…” 

Jane Nelson, director of the Corporate Responsibility Initiative at the Harvard Kennedy School, lays out a collective action approach to system-level change in her forthcoming paper Partnerships for Sustainable Development. The paper documents a host of business partnerships and alliances, some business-alone and some jointly with government and civil society, that function to improve the social and environmental impact of business operations. By operating together by a set of principles, and sometimes jointly investing in innovation, leading corporations in specific sectors can raise the bar for corporate behavior through industrywide alliances that provide the opportunity for companies to share best practices while avoiding putting any single company at a competitive disadvantage.

Triangulating the SDGs, Business, and U.S. Assistance

What is particularly striking about this business case for the SDGs, besides the size of the market potential, is the extent to which these activities correlate with current U.S. government development policies and programs—both in working with countries to create a business friendly policy environment and in engaging with the private sector in specific transactions and alliances.

Take agriculture for example. The U.S. Agency for International Development supports advisory services to governments to improve policies and regulations; invests in research to improve seeds and other inputs and agricultural practices; helps small farmers and cooperatives to reduce waste and adapt new technology; and works with U.S. and local companies on specific investment projects.  Through Feed the Future and the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition, the USAID has engaged with over 200 global and domestic companies and secured more than $10 billion in investment commitments. Through the Coffee Farmer Resilience Initiative, the agency works with private companies to limit their risk in extending support to coffee farmers in Latin America. The agency has partnered with a local company and the Cold Chain Bangladesh Alliance to build a “cold chain” that makes it possible for small farmers to get their produce to market.

As another example, public-private partnership in energy are substantial. In Power Africa 12 U.S. government agencies, led by USAID, has partnered with over 120 public and private entities to commit $12 billion of public funds and $40 billion of private investment to bring electricity to tens of millions of citizens in Africa. A key role for U.S. government agencies is providing technical assistance and advice to African governments on creating the policies and regulations that will facilitate private investment in the energy sector. With less than $8 million from USAID, PFAN-Asia has supported some $500 million in clean energy investment.

USAID is also engaging with private companies in investing in solutions in health, education, tropical foreign preservation, water and sanitation, and financial inclusion.

The development activities of USAID and other U.S. government agencies are a win-win for developing countries and U.S. companies. At the same time as improving economic and social policies and regulations in recipient countries, these collaborations help U.S. companies understand and navigate local environments and compete for opportunities, thereby contributing to their competitiveness.

Simply put, business is paying attention to the SDGs. And U.S. assistance programs complete the triangle linking the business community with the SDGs to reduce poverty and promote inclusive economic growth.

      

 

 

Guest interviewer Esther Care, senior fellow in the Center for Universal Education, discusses with Ramya Vivekanandan, program specialist at UNESCO Asia-Pacific Regional Bureau for Education, and Sean Slade, the director of outreach at the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development,

Slade highlights the inefficiencies in assessment for current education systems:

“What we need to remember is that the current system we have is not working for the majority of students or it’s not reaching the potential that it could be, and the assessment systems and delivery systems that we’ve had for at least the last ten or fifteen years are not teaching the skills that we know are going to be needed in the 21st century. I often say as well that in the U.S., we’ve been focusing a lot on standardized testing, especially when it comes to literacy and numeracy. Now, there are studies out there that show that students who actually do well on standardized tests, even at leaving school level, that is not indicative of their success in future life. And so I think we need to remember that the system we’ve had previously has not been a perfect system.”

Vivekanandan outlines the need for change in current education systems and the challenges for reformation:

“I think as a whole that at a high, policy level that countries are very committed to reorienting to a certain extent their education systems to focus on things like problem solving, being able to live and work with people from other cultures, communication, etc. In our part of the world, creative and innovative thinking and interpersonal skills were the areas that were emphasized…and it seems that what drove that was the economic discourse, that if you focus on these areas, you will produce learners who can be more successful in the job markets….but the actual “how” of doing these things… how to assess and integrate these skills into the curriculum, how are teachers supported to actually teach these areas, how do you assess creativity and problem solving? These I think are the challenges which we are very much interested in continuing to examine.”

Show Notes:

Skills for a changing world: National perspectives and the global movement

Annual research and policy symposium: Skills for a changing world

Education assessment in the 21st century: New skillsets for a new millennium

No quality education without happy learners

School Climate Change: How Do I Build a Positive Environment for Learning? (ASCD Arias)

With thanks to audio producer Gaston Reboredo and producer Vanessa Sauter, and also thanks for additional support from Kelly Russo, Fred Dews, and Richard Fawal.

Subscribe to Brookings podcasts here or on iTunes, send feedback email to intersections@brookings.edu, and follow us and tweet us at @policypodcasts on Twitter.

Intersections is part of the Brookings Podcast Network.

      

 

 

“The development activities of civil society and the public sector are critical but not sufficient,” Lord Mark Malloch-Brown, chair of the Business and Sustainable Development Commission, told an audience at Brookings in reference to the need for private sector engagement in global sustainable development. At an event co-hosted by the Global Economy and Development program at Brookings and the United Nations Foundation, the case was made that the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) need the private sector and that business needs the SDGs too.

In her welcoming remarks, Ambassador Elizabeth Cousens, deputy chief executive officer of the U.N. Foundation, introduced the commission’s work as “path-breaking,” based on the geographic and sector-specific underpinnings of its business case. She further described the challenge of sustaining public trust, and the power of aligning the private sector’s core business with the strategic objectives of the international community.

Malloch-Brown, himself a former U.N. deputy secretary-general, explained that a core theme of the commission’s new Better Business, Better World report is that development should be central to business activity because it eventually leads to sustainable profits. The report draws on insights from over 30 global private sector and civil society leaders who are commission members, including Jack Ma of Alibaba, Laura Alfaro of Harvard Business School, Bob Collymore of Safaricom, and Ho Ching of Temasek Holdings.

The panel following Malloch-Brown’s opening remarks was moderated by Brookings Senior Fellow John McArthur. Panelists discussed the report and their views on how business can become a bigger player in lifting countries out of fragility, tackling climate change, and taking on the challenge of ending extreme poverty.

Barry Parkin, chief sustainability and health and wellbeing officer of Mars Inc., reinforced many of the themes laid out by Malloch-Brown, using the example that it is the food industry’s best interest to help lift farmers out of poverty, because they’ll be incentivized to continue producing the crops the industry needs rather than find other jobs.

Regarding policymaking, the director of the Corporate Responsibility Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School, Jane Nelson, emphasized how business can leverage its influence on governments to push for good public policies, or what’s been called the question of “responsible lobbying.” “The commission has highlighted that the policy voice of business is also incredibly important, both being responsible about it in the way they advocate, but also looking at new opportunities,” said Nelson.

Paul O’Brien, vice president for policy and campaigns at Oxfam America, argued that today’s political environment and growing anti-globalization backlash have created hurdles for development and that much of the previous work, in terms of public policy, is already being reversed. O’Brien stressed the need for governments and businesses to face incentives to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, with citizen engagement as the best mechanism for ensuring they do so. At the same time, he posited that, “Making the opportunity case to the corporations right now, for the SDGs, may not be the biggest challenge of our time.” Instead, O’Brien suggested it might be even more important to focus on broader impact, regardless of whether companies are specifically talking about the SDGs.

Answering the question of how to move forward, Malloch-Brown maintained that convenience (and expediency) is not the solution; rather we need businesses to seize upon large-scale opportunities and become leaders in global development if we are to make headway in creating a better world.

Malloch-Brown concluded with a hopeful statement about the private sector’s embrace of social responsibility, saying, “We have moved from the one-dimensional [profit and loss] company of the past. That has for me been the most exciting discovery of working with these companies.”

The full event video, audio, and transcript are available here.

      

 

 

By Christina Golubski

Last week, the World Bank released its 2017 Atlas of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which is an interactive data visualization meant to demonstrate and guide the reader through the progress of countries toward the SDG targets.

Goal 9 of the SDGs, “Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization, and foster innovation,” is particularly important for sub-Saharan Africa as its intense economic growth over the past decade has slowed. Historically, industry and manufacturing have been pathways to economic development in several regions of the world, but, in sub-Saharan Africa, industry’s share of GDP has, on average, been declining. However, the 2017 Atlas finds significant variation among sub-Saharan African countries in terms of manufacturing value added (MVA) per capita, which measures the relative value of net manufacturing output to the population size, and MVA’s share in GDP, which measures the role of manufacturing in the economy (Figure 1).

Though the majority of sub-Saharan African countries have an MVA per capita below $200, indicating relatively low manufacturing output per person, several countries such as Nigeria, Namibia, Seychelles, Botswana, and Gabon boast MVA per capita higher than $200 though their shares of MVA as a percent of GDP are less than 11 percent, the regional average in 2015. At the same time, countries like the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Benin, Senegal, Zimbabwe, and Kenya maintain a higher MVA as a share of their GDP than the regional average, but a relatively low MVA per capita.

Figure 1: Manufacturing value added varies considerably in sub-Saharan Africa (manufacturing value added, most recent value available for 2014–15)

      

 

 

By Homi Kharas, Ashok Gulati, Joachim von Braun

      

 

 

By Homi Kharas, John McArthur