Presentation by Louis Kasakande (African Development Bank) during the High Level Policy Forum - After 2015: Promoting Pro-poor Policy after the MDGs - Brussels, 23 June 2009 - http://www.bit.ly/after2015
2. Outline of the presentation
1. Highlights of Africa’s progress towards
MDGs
2. Pro-poor policies after MDGs: challenges
3. Rethinking Pro-poor policies after MDGs in
Africa
4. Concluding remarks
3. 1. Highlights of Africa’s progress
towards MDGs
On average SSA is the region with the
slowest pace of progress towards reaching
targets set in the MDGs.
However, there are significant disparities
across countries in the progress towards
MDGs
Some countries have registered rapid
progress towards achieving some targets,
while others recorded much slower progress.
(see Figure below)
4. Figure 1: Progress towards universal education in selected African
countries
5. 1. Highlights of Africa’s progress
towards MDGs (contd)
Tracking progress is undermined by lack of
timely and reliable data on targets.
Despite efforts in generating MDGs-related
data in most African countries, poor quality of
data is still a significant challenge for
monitoring progress in real time.
6. 2. Pro-poor policies after MDGs:
challenges (contd..)
Little effort has been made to recognize that
most of the targets are means to accelerate
economic prosperity; but often they are
considered as ends in their own right.
As a result, there is a weak mapping from
targets to policy instruments or vice versa.
Identifying robust & potent policy instruments
to achieve a set of targets is complicated by
multiplicity of targets
7. 2. Pro-poor policies after MDGs:
challenges (contd)
MDGs also often lack coherence &
coordination partly because of multiplicity of
players.
Governments, development agencies (UNDP,
bilateral aid agencies, etc..), NGOs, civil
society organizations have rallied themselves
around MDGs often resulting in duplication of
efforts.
The multiplicity of players naturally results in
sub-optimal of resources.
8. 3. Rethinking pro-poor policies after
MDGs
MDGs will continue to be relevant beyond
2015 for a number of reasons:
As shared vision, they can rally public support
for increased ODA in donor countries;
They provide a platform for better
development partnership
The goals are popular and easily
understandable; this important for building
public support behind the goals.
But, they need rethinking in the following
areas for effective implementation
9. 3. Rethinking Pro-poor policies
beyond 2015
Recent events have shown fragility in growth
performance and the threat to attaining the
MDGs;
Income inequality and the associated social
tensions (Kenya)
Vulnerability to External shocks ( Food crisis
and Financial crisis)
The reversal of gains in just six months in
case of the Financial crisis
10. 3. Rethinking pro-poor policies after
MDGs (contd..)
Refocusing targets: the focus should be on the
following two encompassing goals.
Focused Goal 1: Promoting growth
wealth creation is a perquisite for redistribution,
investment, acceleration of the increase in living
standards
growth targets should show progress in areas beyond
education, and health to include infrastructure, etc..
But, focusing on growth allows optimal use of
resources.
11. 3. Rethinking pro-poor policies after
MDGs (contd..)
Focused goal 2: Reducing inequality
rising inequality is a major constraint to wealth
creation and poverty reduction
Reduction in inequality increases the gains
from growth across cross-section of society and
regions
Lower inequality promotes social justice and
stability
12. Rethinking Pro-poor policies
beyond 2015
Focus on Fragile States
Threat to MDGs is the existence of fragile
states
Agree that aid is more effective in good policy
environment BUT we need to rethink
approach to fragile states.
Cost is enormous once they fall into
fragility(Somalia,DRC,Zimbabwe). Should we
rethink PBA?
Action may be needed beyond regional effort
13. 3. Rethinking Pro-poor policies
beyond 2015…
Broaden Goal 7: Sustainable Growth
Climate change remains a threat to
sustainable development
Recognise the external shocks that pose a
big threat to sustainable development
Rebalance growth strategy between social
and infrastructure
14. 3. Rethinking pro-poor policies after
MDGs (contd..)
Better definition of policy instruments
So far there is no clear mapping from policy
instruments to targets
no information on the sensitivity of targets to
instruments
no defined intermediate targets
as a principle, the fewer the targets, the easier the
implementation & monitoring
Another major problem in the current setting is lack
of adequate control over the policy instruments:
Poor policy alignment
Weak harmonization of aid policies
15. 4. Concluding remarks
Experience from SSA suggests that the
popular policy action to reach the MDGs is to
scale up government expenditure/ODA in the
delivery of basic social services.
Little attention has been paid to economy-
wide effects of interventions and interactions
across interventions.
16. 4. Concluding remarks (contd)
Some progress in MDGs can be traced back
to involvement of large donor resources.
However, aid-driven progress towards the
MDGs raises concerns of sustainability of
targets (risk of deterioration of targets after
aid).
17. 4. Concluding remarks (contd)
As we look forward beyond 2015, it is
imperative to rethink pro-poor policies in
terms of:
Instrument-target alignment,
Prioritization of targets,
Sequencing,
Greater coherence of financing with overall
development strategy of each country.