The MDGs arose as a counter-blast to the perceived failure of the ‘neo-liberal’ agenda – the one favouring markets, the private sector, and globalisation – to deliver for the world’s poor.

Richard Heeks
Development Informatics Group
University of Manchester, UK
richard.heeks@man.ac.uk

The purpose of this article is to prompt some questioning of current “e-Development” priorities. We have too readily assumed that the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) must be the priority for application of ICTs. Yet the MDGs themselves can be challenged, as can the relevance of applying ICTs to those goals. This article will argue that we ought at least to be considering some different priorities if we want to make most effective use of the opportunities that new technology affords.

Questioning the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
Setting up of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by the UN is an attempt to directly address fundamental injustices and inequities that currently blight our planet. It will be fallacious to assume that like Mother Teresa, MDGs are on the side of the angels, and we should follow their lead without questioning them. It might be true that their hearts are in the right place but development should be guided more by the head than by the heart, and we certainly have the right to question these goals.

We can firstly question them from a political angle. The MDGs arose as a counter-blast to the perceived failure of the ‘neo-liberal’ agenda – the one favouring markets, the private sector, and globalisation – to deliver for the world’s poor. Yet the new agenda falls into many of the same traps as the old one.

Neo-liberalism was accused of being ‘hegemonic’: of imposing a one-size-fits-all model that allowed no deviations from orthodoxy. But the new approach does just the same, forcing policies through the MDG filter and hammering them hard until they pass through. Where is the flexibility? Where is the consideration that there might be alternative, even better, paths to development

Neo-liberalism was also accused of being an invention of the North, imposed on the South by international agencies. Isn’t that exactly true of the MDGs as well? Developing nations have been dragged from one Northern-inspired orthodoxy to the next: a state agenda in the 1960s and 1970s; a private sector agenda in the 1980s and 1990s; and now an NGO agenda in the 2000s. Where is the breathing space and support for countries to construct their own agendas?

We can secondly question the MDGs from a practical angle. Take a historical perspective and point out which of the rich, industrialised nations got rich and industrialised by placing MDG-type goals at the heart of their development strategies. Can you find them? I doubt it. My adopted hometown – Manchester – was the original laboratory, the original motor for the dramatic change of the industrialisation process. It catalysed England’s transformation from a relatively poor agricultural economy to a relatively rich developed economy; much the same transformation that so many developing countries today seek to achieve. But this change was not achieved by poverty-friendly policies, but, through an often unpleasant and unruly dash for wealth. Of course, philanthropy and social development played their part, but as after-effects of the transformation, not its driving forces.

So the development agendas emanating from the North are very much a case of ‘do as I say’ not ‘do as I do’. Political economist Ha-Joon Chang calls this “kicking away the ladder”: denying developing countries the very paths to development that industrialised countries used. We’ve seen it with the environmental agenda: Northern nations that were dirty-as-can-be while they got rich telling the South that it must take the green route. And with the neo-liberal agenda: the

Despite the lack of exposure given to realities like Gyandoot, the message of ICT failure has trickled back to some development organisations. The result has been a backlash against e-Development.

wind, all, point in one direction: the developmental gains from investing in ICT production are greater than for investment in ICT consumption. Put simply, agencies and governments with, say, $100,000 to spend would better use it to incubate new IT firms rather than to create a service delivery web site. Put another way, if you do invest in that web site, look for the benefits in the firm that made the web site more than in the government department that uses the web site.

Supporting ICT production does not just mean helping large hardware and software firms in developing countries. It includes the above but, the ICT sector can be a much broader, much deeper development activity. It encompasses IT consultants, IT trainers, web designers, Internet service providers, data services providers, and many more. And it runs from the top to the bottom of the economy. India’s Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) may be nudging the global Top 10 in software but it sits alongside tens of thousands of tiny backstreet database developers, PC assemblers and the like.

For an example of what can be achieved, take a look at that part of Kerala’s Kudumbashree initiative that is inducting women from below-poverty-line families into the ICT sector through hardware and services enterprises. These create real and direct benefits for poor communities – jobs, incomes, skills, empowerment, gender equalities – in a way ICT consumption projects cannot. Yet this most valuable aspect of ICT’s role in development falls under the radar of most development agencies.

Those agencies need to take a closer look at what ICT
production has to offer. They also need to reconsider their ICT consumption priorities. Some suggestions, then, for those still investing in ICT consumption projects:

• Break the MDG hegemony: The MDGs may be necessary for development but they are certainly not sufficient. We need a continuing emphasis on economic growth, and this covers ICTs too. To take just one example, the current MDG-inspired prioritisation of ICT applications for small- and micro-scale firms seems odd given these are the enterprises that have the least impact economically in terms of growth, incomes, efficiency and exports. At least equal weight should be given to assisting medium- and large-scale firms.They still need help but they are far better equipped to make sustainable use of ICTs, and are the main engines of wealth creation and competitiveness.
• The back office not the front office: ICT initiatives reaching out to citizens are beloved by politicians and agencies because they grab media attention.They are also the ones that fail. Far more effective are the back office applications that help better planning, decision-making and management. They may not attract the limelight but they are more likely to sustain and to have a mass-scale impact. Here, the motto could also be “the data centre, not the telecentre”.
• Follow some cowpaths: Sometimes agencies need to lead countries and communities in new directions they would not go by themselves; but they don’t always have to do this. With ICTs it often makes sense to take the organic approach of following fashion, rather than the inorganic approach of trying to create your own fashion statement. The ICT fashion already being followed in so many developing communities is the cell phone, not the PC. So agencies should be paying far more attention to the development potential of mobile telephony.

Summing up
The MDGs are not the devil’s brew, deliberately cooked up for the purposes of under-development. But nor are they tablets of stone that ‘shalt not be questioned’. They do run the risk of skewing the development agenda, and they also run the risk of marginalising ICTs. We must have the courage to challenge the MDGs and to take a broader look at ways in which ICTs can contribute to socio-economic development. If we do not, we may miss a generational opportunity to properly harness new technology for the good of all.

UN Millennium Project releases its final report UN Millennium Project is a global effort in the service of a great global cause—the Millennium Development Goals. Millennium Fund Trust, UNDP provided financial support for the project. “Investing in development: A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals” is the final report of the UN Millennium Project. It presents the findings and recommendations of the project, which will be reported directly to the UN Secretary-General and the Administrator of the UNDP. It is a practical plan to achieve millennium development goals. Recommendations and sector-specific policies are summarised in this main report, and are described in further depth in the individual reports of the UN Millennium Project task. The study has touched various aspects of the MDGs like what are MDGs, why these are important, the need for substantial increase in official development assistance (ODA) and other resources to achieve the internationally agreed development goals. The report summarises the progress made towards each goal and how different regions of developing countries are progressing. It also enumerates the reasons for not achieving the desirable results so far. The report has identified four overarching reasons why the goals are not being achieved. According to it, sometimes the problem is poor governance, marked by corruption, poor economic policy choices, and denial of human rights. Sometimes the problem is a poverty trap, with local and national economies too poor to make the needed investments. Sometimes the progress is made in one part of the country but not in others. Even when overall governance is adequate, there are areas of specific policy neglect that can have a monumental effect on citizens well being. The report lays thrust on public and private investments to achieve MDGs. It clearly indicates that public and private bodies can act as complementary to each other and not as competitors if right mechanism is worked out. It also highlights how civil society can help in achieving MDGs and lays stress on good governance to achieve the targets set under the goals. One of the interesting findings of the report is that most of the regions like West Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and Carribean are off track from reaching most of the MDGs. The report makes ten key recommendations to achieve MDGs effectively: Developing country governments should adopt development strategies bold enough to meet the MDG targets for 2015. In order to meet this deadline, all countries should have these MDG-based poverty reduction strategies in place by 2006. Existing Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) should be aligned with the MDGs. MDG-based poverty reduction strategies should anchor the scaling up of public investments, capacity building, domestic resource mobilisation, and official development assistance. They should also provide a framework for strengthening governance, promoting human rights, engaging civil society, and promoting the private sector. MDG-based poverty reduction strategies should be created and implemented by developing country governments in transparent and inclusive processes, working closely with civil society organisations, the domestic private sector, and international partners. International donors should identify at least a dozen ‘fast-track’ countries for a rapid scale-up of ODA in 2005, recognising that many countries are already in a position for a massive scale-up on the basis of their good governance and absorptive capacity. Developed and developing countries should jointly launch, in 2005, a group of Quick Win actions to save and improve millions of lives and to promote economic growth (including for example free mass distribution of malaria bed-nets and the ending of user fees for primary schools and essential health services). They should also launch a massive effort to build expertise at the community level. Developing country governments should align national strategies with such regional initiatives as the New Partnership for Africa’s Development and the Caribbean Community (and Common Market), and regional groups should receive increased donor support for regional projects. High-income countries should increase Official Development Assistance (ODA) from 0.25 percent of donor GNP in 2003 to around 0.44 percent in 2006 and 0.54 percent in 2015 to support the MDGs, particularly in low-icome countries. ODA quality should be improved (including aid that is harmonised, predictable and largely in the form of grants-based budget support). Each donor should reach 0.7 percent no later than 2015 to support the MDGs and other development assistance priorities. Debt relief should be more extensive and generous. High-income countries should open their markets to developing country exports through the Doha trade round and help Least Developed Countries raise export competitiveness through investments in critical trade-related infrastructure, including electricity, roads and ports. The Doha Development Agenda should be fulfilled and the Doha Round completed no later than 2006. International donors should mobilise support for global scientific research and development to address special needs of the poor in areas of health, agriculture, natural resource and environmental management, energy and climate. Total needs are estimated to rise to approximately $7 billion a year by 2015. The UN Secretary-General and the UN Development Group should strengthen the coordination of UN agencies, funds, and programmes to support the MDGs, at headquarters and country level. The UN Country Treams should be strengthened and should work closely with the international financial institutions to support the MDGs. The complete report can be read at: http://unmp.forumone.com/eng_full_report/MainReportComplete-lowres.pdf Reported by Naveen Kaul