Middle East / North Africa and the Millennium Development Goals ...

Markus Loewe
New development consensus: In the course of the 1990s, a certain rapprochement
came about between the basic positions of the Bretton Woods
institutions (IMF and World Bank) and the UN system. This paved the
way for a new development consensus, which is sometimes called the
“post-Washington consensus”. The Millennium Declaration and the
MDGs address the need to reduce poverty – labeled as an “unacceptable,
global problem” – in all its dimensions as the objective of the new consensus.
Sustainable human development instead of a one-sided focus on economic
growth: One characteristic feature of the new development consensus is its
comprehensive concept of poverty, which includes the poor’s lack of human
capital (education, health), political rights (participation, civil rights,
transparency of administrative and judiciary systems, etc.), and possibilities
to manage risks (social protection). The consensus furthermore attaches
greater importance than past conventions to the sustainability of development
in its ecological, social, and economic dimensions. Accordingly,
since the mid-1990s national and international development strategies
have focused increasingly on the promotion of democracy and good
governance, building and further development of systems of social protection,
and improving environmental and resource protection, without losing
sight of the need for participation and gender mainstreaming. A liberal
economic system geared to competition and equal opportunity continues to
be seen as a central precondition for development and poverty reduction,
although it is at the same time also emphasized that, if they are to be sustained,
competition and equal opportunity may often require targeted government
intervention.
Outcome orientation: Development policy and development cooperation
are expected to be geared to and measurable in terms of the common goal
of poverty reduction – as are all other external policies of the industrialized
countries. The main concern here is not what inputs are provided by
individual actors but what impacts these inputs achieve altogether. To
measure the impacts, the MDGs can be used as indicators (Radele 2004).
Coherence: In view of the scarcity of the resources available to it, DC
must, if it is to generate the maximum possible impacts, be coherent, i.e.
all relevant actors must join forces and subordinate their activities to the
common goal system. This involves three different dimensions: First, donor
DC must be coherent with other external policies. DC should, for ex-
32 German Development Institute