MDGs, Economic Performance and Governance: A Broader Perspective

We present the MDG project in a broader and global perspective. We concentrate on poverty reduction, the overarching goal among the MDGs, and mortality rates as affected by economic perfomwnce and governance. We first”present the face of global poverty through time and space highlighting where progress has been made and where shortfalls have remained. We then discuss the origins of the MDG worldview as a response to the apparent failure of the “trickle down” philosophy and its roadmap, The Washington Consensus, highlighting the usual conflict between “growing the pie” and “sharing the pie” and their relative effect on poverty reduction. We then illustrate the fundamental relationships in a series of structural flow charts that differentiate between the two polar approaches. In the MDG view the state must directly bring about inclusive growth preferably through improved budget allocation. Finally, we explore the relationships bearing on poverty incidence and mortality rates empirically through cross-country regression analyses bearing out the structural relationships. While plain total budget growth may be bad for MDGs, growth in the share of social expenditure is good for MDGs.