The Wheel of Development: the Millennium Development Goals as a communication and development tool

Despite the shortcomings of the Millennium Development Goals as a development tool, they have proven to be an important communication tool that is worth preserving after 2015. Inclusion of important themes of the Millennium Declaration and elements of the capability theory is essential in a post-2015 system, as well as putting human rights and gender principles at its core. Process orientation rather than end goals could lead to ‘Millennium Development Actions’ with ‘Progress Signs’, which, represented in a circular symbol, form a ‘wheel of development’, complemented by a Wheel of Governance.     

The potential for tackling inequality in the Sustainable Development Goals

The recently passed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) encompass a variety of explicit and implicit goals that address inequality. Although formulations remain vague and targets abstract, the SDGs go much further than previous development goals in addressing inequality as a central issue. Against the background of insights from inequality research, the article assesses their potential to become discursive resources for fundamental reforms of established development ideas.     

Social Protection Policy or a Political Largesse: Disability Fund Efficacy Assessment and Roadblocks to Sustainable Development Goals

ABSTRACT

Social protection policies have been tools for fighting social exclusion, inequality and reducing poverty incidence among vulnerable populations in developing countries. In this regard, the government of Ghana through the institution of the disability fund has demonstrated a commitment to advancing the cause of people with disabilities. In assessing policy efficacy, the realities on the ground, as well as policy challenges, 130 persons with disability (PWDs) and 10 Key Informants (KIs) were recruited from across five regions. In addition to conducting face-to-face interviews with PWDs, the study conducted a number of interviews with key informants (KIs). The study findings concluded amongst other things that, the policy is plagued with challenges such as limited information about the fund, fund access difficulty and disbursement delays. It was also revealed that; the policy is saddled with opacity and partisan politics. To ensure efficiency and expedite the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 1, the research proposed for policy restructuring. In addition to introducing financial literacy and management training for beneficiaries, the study proffers decoupling the fund management from political structures to help meet the objectives for which it was incepted.     

Tracking the gender politics of the Millennium Development Goals: struggles for interpretive power in the international development agenda

This article tracks the gender politics of the processes that led to the adoption of the Millennium Development Goals and that continued to feature in subsequent policy debates. It suggests that this politics is rooted in tensions between conceptualisations of rights and capabilities that characterised the preceding decade. While feminist organisations made major gains on women’s rights during 1990s, it was a narrow version of human capabilities that defined the MDGs. Feminist efforts since then have focused on defending sexual and reproductive rights in the face of the attacks mounted by an ‘unholy alliance’ led by the Vatican and supported by a shifting group of countries and religious groups. This has led to the relative neglect of the economic injustices associated with the dominant market-led model of development.     

The true extent of global poverty and hunger: questioning the good news narrative of the Millennium Development Goals

The final report on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) concludes that the project has been ‘the most successful anti-poverty movement in history’. Two key claims underpin this narrative: that global poverty has been cut in half, and global hunger nearly in half, since 1990. This good-news narrative has been touted by the United Nations and has been widely repeated by the media. But closer inspection reveals that the UN’s claims about poverty and hunger are misleading, and even intentionally inaccurate. The MDGs have used targeted statistical manipulation to make it seem as though the poverty and hunger trends have been improving when in fact they have worsened. In addition, the MDGs use definitions of poverty and hunger that dramatically underestimate the scale likely of these problems. In reality, around four billion people remain in poverty today, and around two billion remain hungry – more than ever before in history, and between two and four times what the UN would have us believe. The implications of this reality are profound. Worsening poverty and hunger trends indicate that our present model of development is not working and needs to be fundamentally rethought.     

A System of Contradictory Goals and Realization of Ambidexterity: A Case Study of a Municipal Corporation

Pursuit of contradictory goals is inherent in the activities of any typical public-sector organization. Bulk of the existing literature on how contradictory goals can be pursued successfully focuses on a single pair of contradictory goals, largely pursued by private sector organizations. This empirical study identifies a system of multiple pairs of contradictory goals associated with structural separation of subunits of a public-sector organization in India, where the organization is a municipal corporation and two of its subunits engaged in the business of Public Urban Transport are involved. Emergence of contradictory goals was observed to be linked with the dynamics of key stakeholder interests. The study revealed that the top and middle managers may respond differently to a pair of contradictory goals, and the same manager also responds differently to different pairs of contradictory goals. Three pairs of contradictory goals were identified. These goals involved subunit identity and shared identity, contractor compliance and maintaining relationship with the contractor, and performance and learning. Realization of organizational ambidexterity appeared linked to how well the simultaneity and variety of contradictory goals are matched by simultaneity and variety of responses, namely a combination of structural, contextual and behavioral arrangements by the organization and individuals.     

The "other diseases" of the Millennium Development Goals: rhetoric and reality of free drug distribution to cure the poor's parasites

The sixth MDG aims 'to combat HIV/AIDS, TB, malaria and other diseases'. The residual category of 'other diseases' has become the focus of intense interest, partly because it has provided an opportunity to increase resources for the control of the mostly parasitic 'neglected tropical diseases' (NTDs). Intense lobbying has secured large amounts of funding from donors, as well as generous donations of medicines from the major drug companies. A massive programme is now underway to treat the parasites of the poor in Africa via integrated vertical interventions of mass drug administration in endemic areas. The approach has been hailed as remarkably effective, with claims that there is now a real prospect of complete control and, for some NTDs, even elimination. However, a closer look at evaluation and research data reveals that much less is known about what is being achieved than is suggested. Competition between implementing organisations is leading to potentially counterproductive exaggerations about treatment coverage. Detailed local-level research in Uganda and Tanzania shows that actual rates of drug take-up among target populations are often lower than is necessary to effectively control the diseases, and that methods of drug distribution may even lead to active resistance to treatment. If current trends are not corrected, declining rates of NTD infection will not be sustained. Much more rigorous and effective monitoring is essential.     

The Role of Brand Orientation in Developing a Learning Culture and Achieving Performance Goals in the Third Sector Organizations

ABSTRACT

This study is first in nature to find the empirical evidence of relationship between brand orientation (BRO), learning orientation (LO), and its impact on Performance (PERF) of third sector organizations (TSOs) in Pakistan. A structured questionnaire was filled through non-probability snowball sampling method from more than 300 senior managers working in different cities of Pakistan. The structural equation model was used for the mediation by running smart partial least squares software. The results prove that organizations with strong BRO philosophy not only help to develop strong LO culture but also help in achieving organizational performance goals. The study also discussed practical implications, limitations, and areas of future directions.     

Moving Development and Security Narratives a Step Further: Human Security in the Human Development Reports

During the last 20 years, the idea of human security has been spreading globally and locally, albeit unevenly. One factor in this growth has been the role of Human Development Reports as sources of alternative narratives to understand social problems and progress. This paper describes how National and Regional Human Development Reports have generated a rich and analytically fruitful set of approaches to examining and responding to contextual threats, following human security principles – for people-centred, comprehensive, context-specific and prevention-oriented analysis and exploring basic security questions. However, this richness has not fed back yet into the global apex of Human Development Reports and related work, reflecting a disconnection between levels of analysis that hinders the transformation of development and security narratives.     

Participatory Development and Reconstruction: a literature review

In the past decade researchers and development experts have been preoccupied by participatory development and reconstruction. Despite criticisms of its potential, it has been at the centre of development practices. This review of both published and unpublished literature aims to assess the importance of participatory development and reconstruction, especially its positive and negative characteristics. The paper shows that, despite its potentially transformative role, its main drawback rests in the power relations between elites and non-elites and that creating comprehensible ways through which non-elites can deal with these relations is one issue that needs additional research. Other issues that need more research are related to how to sustain the participatory development and reconstruction outcomes by increasing local ownership, and how to better involve existing structures and institutions (both state and non-state actors) in development and reconstruction efforts for poverty alleviation.     

Dependency and Development in a Globalized World: Looking Back and Forward

The principles of analysis proposed 40 years ago by Cardoso and Faletto in Dependency and Development in Latin America provide a fruitful way to understand divergent patterns of development in the contemporary era of globalization. This set of analytic principles combines a focus on distinct modes of national insertion into the global economy with a focus on the balance of domestic class forces, the capacity of state institutions, and contingent choices by political actors to explain the contrasting developmental fortunes of countries. The contributors to this special issue demonstrate the vitality of these principles by harnessing them to the dual task of explaining how countries respond to the challenges of globalization and the consequences of these responses. The critical, macroscopic, and possibilistic approach to political economy taken by the contributors offers an exciting and powerful way to understand the problems of development in our globalized world.     

Mobilizing Change in Public Services: Insights from a Systems Leadership Development Intervention

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the mobilization of systems change through analysis of a place-based ‘systems leadership’ development intervention aimed to develop the capacity of cross-sector partnerships to tackle ‘wicked’ health and social care challenges. Particular attention is given to the role of independent ‘enablers’ in opening up ‘adaptive spaces’ where partners can navigate competing priorities and develop new ways of working. This paper contributes to existing literature by providing an overview of recent developments in the field of public leadership, applying these to the challenge of developing systems leadership capacity and considering implications for future research, development and practice.