UN goals promote capitalism and ignore inequality

 —  April – May 2013

HE Millennium Development Goals

agreed by the United Nations in 

come as close as you can get to moth-

erhood and apple pie in the global

development ﬁeld. These eight goals are cred-

ited with reductions in extreme poverty and child

mortality, increased access to safe drinking water

and primary school enrolment, improved gender

equality and greater levels of overseas develop-

ment aid. What could be wrong with all that?

Well, the targets set, because they are

globalised, disguise uneven progress between dif-

ferent countries. Sub-Saharan Africa, for example,

has not done well. And the targets, because they

focus on extreme poverty, do not address dispari-

ties within countries. That would have required

the wealthier countries to look to their own per-

formance at home as well as abroad.

A focus on extreme poverty is important.

However, it does not necessarily lend itself to

development, as this requires a wider transfor-

mation of both the economy and society. The

Millennium Development Goals sit easily and,

ultimately conveniently, with the neo-liberal

economic project. The emphasis is on social

development and not economic development and

the focus is on extreme poverty and not on equal-

ity. This leaves the economy to market forces and

the private sector. It conﬁnes the role of the state

and overseas donors to building so-called human

capital.

In this way the Millennium Development

Goals end up enabling a development model

based on a small state role, foreign direct invest-

ment, and largely unfettered market forces. This

is a model that runs counter to the values that

these goals aspire to.

The Irish Government has an opportunity to

shape new development goals that could apply

more universally to Ireland, the EU and the

wider world. Over the second half of the Irish EU

Presidency the EU must decide on its position in

relation to what should follow the Millennium

Development Goals when they expire in .

The European Commission has published a

Communication that usefully proposes that any

new framework of goals should be universal and

apply to all countries. The Communication high-

lights the need to bring together the economic,

social and environmental dimensions of sustain-

able development. It seeks a focus on the “drivers

for inclusive and sustainable growth, within

planetary boundaries”. It proposes the objective

of providing “A decent life for all”. This has the

potential to address some of the deﬁciencies in

the current goals.

Inevitably, however, the market rears its

ugly head. The European Commission empha-

sises the need for structural transformation “to

allow for market-friendly open economies”. This

is transformation then to enable the same unfet-

tered market that has brought us environmental

destruction and gross inequalities between coun-

tries and within countries. The Communication

contradicts its promise with this short phrase.

Equality gets mentioned in the Communication.

It states that the “framework should also address

justice, equality and equity” because they are vital

for inclusive and sustainable development and

important values in their own right. However,

there remains a challenge to make equality central

to the wider approach espoused by the European

Commission.

The Irish Government should seek to build on

these European Commission proposals by:

l Establishing equality as central to all goals

set, focusing attention on the redistribution

of resources and of power and inﬂuence;

l Championing a role for the state in relation to

both economic and social development;

l Empowering civil society and encour-

aging organisations that promote the

interests of those who experience poverty

and inequality.

A deliberative event, ‘Setting Goals for a Better

Ireland in a Just World’, in the RDS in Dublin on

the th April proposes to explore and develop

an agenda that should be advanced by the Irish

Government. It is organised by Claiming Our

Future with Dóchas and the Wheel. Information

is available on www.claimingourfuture.ie.

It would be useful for such an event to explore

and deﬁne a new rights-based approach to devel-

opment as a basis for these new goals. In such an

approach people’s needs are identiﬁed in terms

of rights. They are empowered to know their

rights and enabled to seek a fulﬁlment of their

rights. After all, the fulﬁlment of the Universal

Declaration of Human Rights would go fur-

ther than anything oﬀered by the Millennium

Development Goals.

niall crowley

politics

UN goals promote capitalism

and ignore inequality

Ireland could use its EU Presidency to facilitate a more equitable replacement

The Millennium Development

Goals sit easily with the neo-

liberal economic project