MDG Indicators: Smoke and Mirrors?
by Muna Lakhani, director, Institute for Zero Waste in Africa
Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) are a worthy list of what must be done in the world as a matter of urgency. Indeed, one would be hard pressed to find anyone who does not support those goals. But are the indicators used to measure the MDGs real, or just political smoke and mirrors?
You decide……
The idea of poverty alleviation through international interventions was premised on “one US dollar a day” as a suitable measure of poverty. Given that this measure was put into place almost 20 years ago, if we allowed for inflation alone, this would have to translate to between $10 and $15 a day by 2015. So, surely, $1 a day cannot be a good indicator to measure success in reducing poverty?
Nothing is mentioned within the MDGs about redirecting resources from wasteful expenditure to helping the poor – although this might be an easy way to help poverty alleviation. According to data released by the Stockholm Peace Research Institute in Sweden, global arms expenditure in 1998 was $745 billion, calculated at 1990 prices. This implies that $2 billion per day is spent on arms. Why not spend this money, or at least part of it, on reducing poverty?
The notion of money as an indicator remains problematic in itself, however. It would be more realistic to find out what access people have to global commons, such as equitable use of clean air, safe water, friendly soil, nutritious food and energy. This would be a more accurate measure of poverty alleviation because it is less open to subjective manipulation.
The fact that the measuring of MDG 1, reducing poverty and hunger, is relative is shown by the gap between rich and poor in the United States, for example: Poverty is high indeed, yet the number of people who starve as a consequence is relatively low. The key gap here is nutrition rather than the amount of food available. Hence, poverty should be measured according to peoples’ recommended daily requirement of fibre, oils, vitamins, micro-nutrients – the nutritional value and quality of food, not the quantity.
MDG 7, ensuring environmental sustainability, contains some rather meaningless indicators, too. The term “forest”, used to measure an environmentally healthy state, can also be (and has been) perverted to mean mono-cropped commercial alien trees, for example, which are generally more harmful to the environment.
Similarly, the term “sustainability” needs to mean more than protecting a percentage of biodiversity – if pollution is not reduced and phased out, mostly by reducing consumption, we will not be able to protect biodiversity from being killed off, as air and water know no boundaries.
In addition, measuring energy use by a country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is not necessarily a usefull exercise – South Africa has one of the highest energy uses per capita per GDP in the world, but has massive poverty. It would therefore be more meaningful to use alternative indicators, such as per capita renewable energy use.
Having access to water is not the same as being “able to use” water. If, for example, people have water piped to their house, but are unable to afford it, this does not equal availability of water for use.
Equally, the term “improved” sanitation has come to mean VIP toilets in South Africa. The toilets provided by government are of such poor design that they are rendered useless after a year or so, bringing people back to square one, while government uses the numbers of toilets installed as proof for having “delivered”.
Alternative toilet options, such as local and localised biodigesters, that would be more sustainable in the long-term, are not considered. This although biodigesters would increase local water and food security, given their potential to safely re-integrate energy (methane) and nutrients back into the local “economy”, while reducing potential harm from pathogens that could lead to the spread of infectious diseases, such as cholera and the like.
Also, having security of tenure does not equal adequate quality of life. In South Africa, the poor continue to be pushed out to the urban periphery, where there is little to sustain people, either in terms of resources (natural or otherwise) or sustainable work opportunities. What people need is direction and information on alternative financial systems, such cooperative management and micro-lending schemes.
Local and localised economies, rather than the South African focus on export markets, are far more likely to be genuinely sustainable since export-led economies are less able to withstand shocks, such as peak fossil fuel prices. The current global financial crisis and economic depression are clear proof that localised economies would be best able to withstand the shock and sustain livelihoods.
The term “decent and productive work” as used to describe people’s right to employment and certain living standards in the MDGs, is ambiguous, whereas setting a goal to attain “sustainable livelihoods” would be more useful.
So, is money a useful indicator of poverty? If we decided to rather measure what portion of a “Dollar” would be spent on – energy, nutrition, air, water, soil, safe food, etc – one could measure people’s actual quality of life. A measure of poverty that is strictly measured by monetary standards is bound to be limited.
The MDGs, as currently measured, are designed for at least partial failure. It would therefore be of value to re-assess both the MDG targets and their indicators to place them in line with genuine sustainable development and place people first, ahead of commercial and political interests.
(END/2009)
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