This book offers a comprehensive resource on the MDGs which includes information on their origins, trajectory, and effects, and how they shaped the policy agenda and thinking about international development. The author argues that the MDGs were a reductionist agenda that did not incorporate the more transformative and progressive elements of a human development strategy. As well as providing an historical account, this volume also questions the effectiveness of global goal setting as an instrument of global governance. It will interest students, researchers and policy-makers in the fields of development, politics, policy, and global goal setting.

Introduction: Goals and norms of development

Part I Shaping the international development agenda: From human development and human rights to basic needs

Chapter 1. Prospective circa 2003: The Millennium Development Goals-why they matter

Chapter 2. Retrospective circa 2013: Recapturing the human rights vision of the Millennium Declaration

Part II The marketplace of ideas

Chapter 3. The emergence and spread of the global poverty norm

Chapter 4. The poverty narrative and the political economy of development

Chapter 5. Are the MDGs a priority in national poverty reduction strategies and aid programs? Only a few are!

Part III Global goals and the power of numbers

Chapter 6. Global goals as a policy tool: Intended and unintended effects of quantification

Chapter 7. The power of numbers: How targets perverted human rights and human development agendas

Chapter 8. Framing the discourse and shaping agendas: The MDG hunger target and the narrative of food security

Chapter 9. MDGs as performance measures: Faulty metrics that penalize countries starting behind

Chapter 10. Conclusion: Global goals to set international agendas

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Sakiko Fukuda-Parr is Professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs at The New School, New York. From 1995 to 2004, she was Director of the UNDP Human Development Reports.