Matt Berkley

The article errs in linking "Millennium Development Goals" to footnote 9's "Millennium Declaration". The Declaration has a 2000 baseline for mortality pledges, whereas the MDG targets proposed in 2001 and of more dubious formal standing have a generally easier 1990 baseline.

Evidence is at ungoals.org .

This is of some relevance to holding governments to account.

It is not the case that the Declaration is "without the start date" for all pledges. The baseline for child and maternal mortality is "of their current rates".

The guidance note sent by Mark Malloch Brown on 6 November 2001 recognises that the Declaration text "would imply" a 2000 baseline.

If I promise to double your salary, then you would be reasonable to assume I am not talking about your salary ten years ago.

There is abundant evidence that leaders were in effect committing themselves to a 2000 baseline.

Among this evidence is the welcoming by speakers at the Summit and elsewhere of the Secretary-General's recommendation document, the Millennium Report - which has a baseline of 2000 for money and water.

Evidence is at:

millenniumdeclaration.org/p...

I am afraid you made a fundamental error.

Your 2004 paper reads,

"The MDGs are a set of quantitative, time-bound targets for indicators such as poverty, education and mortality in developing countries adopted unanimously by the UN in 2000."

They are not. In 2000 the UN adopted the 2000-baseline Declaration. The General Assembly reaffirmed this in 2001, 2003 and 2005.

Leaders reaffirmed the Declaration in 2013. At Addis Ababa in 2015, leaders reaffirmed the intention for a global information campaign on internationally agreed goals, including those of the Declaration.

millenniumdeclaration.org/p...

"Nearly four years after the setting of the MDGs" in your new paper is not correct.

On 6 November 2001 Mark Malloch Brown and three other heads of UN agencies sent guidelines to UN country representatives with the generally easier 1990-baseline MDG targets. However, the General Assembly had not mentioned the MDGs, or given authorisation for this baseline to be used instead of the Declaration's.

On 14 December 2001 the Assembly welcomed the Secretary-General's 58-page report containing among other proposals the MDG framework. However, it did not specify which parts of the report it was interested in, and appeared to endorse the 2000 baseline again by calling for more publicity for the Declaration.

On 21 December and subsequently, the Assembly reaffirmed the Declaration.

"Extreme poverty is defined by the parsimonious $1.25 a day poverty line to capture only the most egregious forms of destitution: where people live so precariously that they fret about the source of their next meal and are burdened by the simple stresses of survival. Were this kind of poverty really to be eliminated....it would represent a key milestone in human progress."

As I understand it, the World Bank method excludes imputed rent from owner-occupied dwellings.

If rent is counted in expenditure, are people not at risk of being counted as better off if they leave their homes and begin renting, or need to rent additional accommodation for work away from home?

Since there are no statistics for safe water, no inflation rates faced by the poor and no estimates of changing needs for food, fuel, transport, services, rent or anything else, it is not clear to me how a fixed line can "capture destitution" or why the word "poverty" is used in relation to it.

A standard error in the press is to claim that generally easier MDG targets with 1990 baselines were set by the Millennium Declaration in 2000. This of course defrauds the poorest out of holding governments to account - even though the media at the time reported the Declaration as having a 2000 baseline.
poornews.org/economist.htm poornews.org/reuters.htm

The problems are not limited to guesses. I propose that Reuters remedy the error that the easier MDG targets with 1990 baselines were set by world leaders in 2000:

poornews.org/reuters.htm

The article above states,

"the last U.N. development goals were launched in 2000. But the task ahead - finding data to track 17 goals and 169 targets compared with eight goals and 18 targets..."
Those 18 targets were not launched in 2000. The Declaration of 2000 has a 2000 baseline - as Reuters reported then.

Evidence: ungoals.org

"The Millennium Development Goals Report 2015 found that the 15-year effort to achieve the eight aspirational goals set out in the Millennium Declaration in 2000 was largely successful across the globe"

The Millennium Declaration does not mention eight goals, or "Millennium Development Goals", or a baseline of 1990.

It does mention a baseline of "current rates" for chld and maternal mortality.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/...

www.millenniumdeclaration.org - a citizen site - has more detail.

Mr Gates makes a common error, of importance for holding governments to account. The error overstates progress on the mortality pledge of 2000.

The UN in 2000 did not set MDG targets with the generally easier 1990 baselines. Nor did it use "proportions in developing regions", as agencies now use for reporting.

What leaders actually committed themselves to was the same percentage reductions in mortality, but from "current rates".

http://www.un.org/millenniu...

The MDG framework was proposed by the Secretary-General in September 2001. The leaders reaffirmed the Declaration in 2005 and 2013.

It is clear that the baseline for other targets in the Declaration such as on water and money was thought to be 2000, from:

a) the Secretary-General's March 2000 recommendation document to the Summit , "We the Peoples",

b) speeches at the Summit,

c) contemporary reporting and

d) the guidance sent to UN country teams in November 2001.

Some details are at millenniumdeclaration.org .

Matt Berkley