How the Millennium Development Goals are Unfair to Africa

William Easterly

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    Abstract

    Those involved in the millennium development goal (MDG) campaign routinely state "Africa will miss all the MDGs." This paper argues that a series of arbitrary choices made in defining "success" or "failure" as achieving numerical targets for the MDGs made attainment of the MDGs less likely in Africa than in other regions even when its progress was in line with or above historical or contemporary experience of other regions. The statement that "Africa will miss all the MDGs" thus has the unfortunate effect of making African successes look like failures.

    Original languageEnglish (US)
    Pages (from-to)26-35
    Number of pages10
    JournalWorld Development
    Volume37
    Issue number1
    DOIs
    StatePublished - Jan 2009

    Keywords

    • Africa
    • foreign aid
    • human development
    • millennium development goals
    • poverty

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • Geography, Planning and Development
    • Development
    • Sociology and Political Science
    • Economics and Econometrics

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