Post 2015: Global Action for an Inclusive and Sustainable Future

CHApTER TWO
2
This chapter
explores what
the MDGs have
meant for four
very different
countries, based
on original case
studies conducted
by national
research
institutes.
24
WHAT THE mDgS HAvE mEAnT
FOR pOOR COunTRIES –
FOuR CASE STuDIES
Although the millennium Declaration was
endorsed by 189 un member states, the
mDGs that emerged from it have meant
different things to different countries. as
described in chapter 1, they have helped
to mobilise international support for development,
focusing attention on a limited number of goals and
targets. For developing countries, the mDGs can
therefore be used both in helping to shape national
policy and as a framework for managing external
support. an internationally agreed framework
may not, however, always sit comfortably with
specific national priorities and approaches. It will
be interpreted and used differently in each national
context. In defining a post-2015 development
framework it is important to understand what
shapes the commitment to such a framework, how
the mDG framework was used in relation to national
development policies and whether it helped or in some
cases perhaps even hindered their implementation.
In what ways have global instruments such as the
EuropEan rEport on DEvElopmEnt 2013
mDGs contributed and are likely to contribute to
country-anchored development processes?
this chapter explores what the mDGs have meant
for four very different countries, nepal, rwanda,
côte d’Ivoire and peru, based on original case
studies conducted by national research institutes
for this report. 12 the first section of the chapter
provides an overview of the findings from these
country cases. Some of the main questions the
researchers sought to answer include the effects
of the mDGs instrument on policy choices and
implementation at the country level. 13
It is also important to consider more generically
how national policy processes take place and how
international frameworks such as the mDGs can
be expected to interact with national policies. the
second part of the chapter therefore presents recent
academic work on political economy approaches
to analysing country-specific decision-making
12 Summaries of the case studies are included as annexes to this report and the full versions are published on the ErD website. the studies were
conducted by:
• SAWTEE and CESLAM in Nepal, led by Pandey, P.R., Adhikari, R., and Sijapati, B. (2012)
• IPAR in Rwanda, led by Abbott, P., Malunda, D. and Ngamije Festo (2012)
• CIRES in Côte d’Ivoire, led by Kouadio, E.K., Ouattara, Y. and Souleymane, S.D. (2013)
• RIMISP and IEP in Peru, led by Barrantes, R. and Berdegué, J.A. (2012)
13 teams of country-based researchers conducted the case studies. they also organised consultations with national government and civil society
constituencies to discuss their data and analyses, and to formulate propositions for the post-2015 development agenda from the perspective of
their respective countries. these propositions should thus be understood as views emerging from the researchers’ broad-based interviews and
consultations, but make no claim to represent the formal positions of any organisation or official entity.