Columbia International Affairs Online: Working Papers

CIAO DATE: 07/2012

MDGs 2.0: What Goals, Targets, and Timeframe?

Jonathan Karver, Charles Kenny, Andy Sumner

June 2012

Center for Global Development

Abstract

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are widely cited as the primary yardstick against which advances in international development efforts are to be judged. At the same time, the Goals will be met or missed by 2015. It is not too early to start asking ‘what next?’ This paper builds on a discussion that has already begun to address potential approaches, goals and target indicators to help inform the process of developing a second generation of MDGs or ‘MDGs 2.0.’ The paper outlines potential goal areas based on the original Millennium Declaration, the timeframe for any MDGs 2.0 and attempts to calculate some reasonable targets associated with those goal areas.