Columbia International Affairs Online: Working Papers

CIAO DATE: 11/2012

Post-2015 Development Agenda: Goals, Targets and Indicators

Nicole Bates-Eamer, Barry Carin, Min Ha Lee, Wonhyuk Lim, Mukesh Kapila

October 2012

Centre for International Governance Innovation

Abstract

The UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have, overall, been remarkably successful in focusing attention and mobilizing resources to address the major gaps in human development. Some of the MDGs’ key targets, such as halving the poverty rate, will be met by 2015; however, achieving the health goals looks difficult and Africa lags behind, despite the substantial progress it has made since 2000. The product of a consortium of organizations led by CIGI and the Korea Development Institute (KDI), this special report examines the targets that have been met and considers the global implications of the remaining unmet goals, concluding that the global community must build on the current MDGs, moving beyond meeting basic human needs in order to promote dynamic, inclusive and sustainable development. The report reviews a menu of indicators for the candidate goals to inform the future process of selecting the post-2015 successors to the MDGs.