Global development goals have become increasingly used by the United Nations and the international community to promote priority global objectives. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are the most prominent example of such goals, but many others have been set since the 1960s. Despite their...

The gap between strong political commitment to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and slow progress towards meeting them is often attributed to weak 'ownership' by developing country governments. This Working Paper addresses the issue of ownership by analysing the substance of 22 developing...

The current consensus objective of development aid in the international community is to reduce poverty in general and to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in particular. In addition, the dominant view identifies economic growth as the principal means to this end. But the policy...

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were introduced to monitor implementation of the United Nations Millennium Declaration which set out a vision for inclusive and sustainable globalization based on human rights principles. This paper critically assesses the MDG experience including their...

MDGs are global goals and are powerful tools of international policy because they create a framework of accountability by going beyond stating general objectives and set quantitative, time bound targets against which performance can be measured. This paper challenges the methodology...

The current consensus objective of development aid in the international community is to reduce poverty in general and to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in particular. In addition, the dominant view identifies economic growth as the principal means to this end. But the policy...

This paper uses Sen's capability approach to explore whether there are inherent contradictions between human rights and development. Sen's capability and human development approach provides a conceptual framework within which human rights principles can be incorporated into development planning...

This paper addresses the debate about the use of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as performance measures in three ways. First we clarify the concept; like other global goals, the MDGs are benchmarks for gauging progress toward important objectives and should not be treated as planning...