There is big debate going about what should happen when the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) expire in 2015.

I spent a day in New York recently talking about how the successors to MDGs could incorporate goals around inequality.  Other people are following the post-2015 debate closer than I am.  And others know more about inequality.  But I’m interested in how reducing inequality can be included in the next round of “post-2015” goals, and thereby be established as one of the goals of humanity.

When the current MDGs expire, most people assume that the world – via the UN – will embrace a new set of goals, and that they will look something like the existing MDGs.  For inequality, there are a few options, including:

(1) a stand-alone goal on inequality;
(2) integrating inequality indicators in other goals; or
(3) finding a more symbolic or aspirational way to support reducing inequality, without making it a measurable commitment.

It’s worth noting that some goals, like ending extreme poverty or ensuring 100% of children are enrolled in quality schools, are universal and inherently support greater equality.  To some extent, the more ambitious the goals, the more likely they are to help reduce inequality.

But there’s an argument for including a goal (or goals) on inequality in their own right, not as a secondary or incidental benefit of other goals.  For one thing, a stand-alone goal makes clear what the value-statement is and would be a powerful driver for action.

There are serious technical questions about how you could do this.  The standard GINI indicator is widely used, but has flaws that can obscure important aspects of inequality.  Other methods have also been proposed.

While I’m focused on inequality of income, or perhaps wealth, other dimensions of inequality are also important and could make alternative or complementary goals, e.g. inequality of geography, gender, or ethnicity are important and salient in different contexts.

Technical questions have technical answers.  The bigger challenges lie in the politics.  There’s a presumption that a stand-alone inequality goal is a non-starter and would be blocked by the powers that be.  Indeed, the gossip mill reports that when inequality has been proposed in the High Level Panel discussions, the UK Prime Minister has flatly refused to consider it.  But he isn’t the decider.  Or is he?

It’s depressing that the High Level Panel may neglect inequality, but there are plenty of other stakeholders and intervention points.  For example, you can have a say in the U.N. global survey for citizens. (Consider writing in “inequality” as a priority.)

The resistance of some key leaders doesn’t square with the reality that inequality rates very high as a public concern, in countries north and south, rich and poor.

It’s easy to understand why the one percent might not like all this attention to inequality,  and also why they might oppose setting an objective to reduce it.  But why would everyone else?  And why would political leaders like Cameron oppose it?

Unless they cared more about the super-rich than everyone else?

Nick Galasso is a research and policy advisor on inequality and economic growth at Oxfam America.

Is it better to gain absolutely or relatively?

For example, free trade agreements promise all members economic benefits (absolute gains); although some members will benefit more than others (relative gains).

In terms of poverty, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are a lesson in absolute gains. In sheer numbers, we’ve halved the world’s population living below the $1.25/day poverty line, and millions more joined the ranks of an emerging global middle class.

Yet, the victory of absolute poverty gains masks the pernicious relative inequalities that have grown alongside poverty reductions.

In many countries, poverty reduction and economic growth were unequal. In China, for example, the urban poor along the industrial coast made much greater gains than those in the vast, rural interior. In other places, prejudices and discrimination excluded groups from the benefits of growth and social services because of gender, race, ethnicity, and religion. Globalization and growth accelerated the creation of new, exclusive classes of upper middle and high income earners. Yet, the impact escalated prices on food and essentials, leaving the near poor vulnerable to slipping back below the poverty threshold.

To the right of the tennis courts and swimming pools, is Paraisópolis, a favela or shanty town, outside of São Paulo, Brazil. Translated, its name is Paradise City. Source: Google Maps http://bit.ly/11tbM3X. You can see another view of the area by photographer Tuca Vieira here: http://bit.ly/W7TODA

As we gear up for a post 2015 agenda, our generation is in a unique historical position. Eradicating global poverty is no longer a fantasy. It’s within our reach. However, the next challenge is reducing chronic inequalities between those subsisting just above the poverty line, and those securely apart of the middle class, or higher.

As the UN’s High Level Panel meets in Monrovia this week to discuss the post 2015 agenda, let’s laud the MDGs for helping to deliver the absolute gains made eradicating poverty.

But, let’s not allow world leaders to shy from the difficult challenge of creating relative gains for those heretofore excluded from economic and social opportunities.

Guest post by Lidia Fromm Cea, Viceminister for Social Policies, Honduras Ministry of Social Development

Lidia Fromm Cea of the Honduras Ministry of Social Development was a government representative at the 4th High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan last year. Photo courtesy Lidia Fromm Cea.

The Busan Outcome Document was negotiated one year ago. Being a sherpa in this process was not a simple nor an easy task for me. Diverse and multiple stakeholders were engaged in complex consultative processes before and after the 4^th High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness. But one year later, representatives from governments, donors, and civil society still share the will and common ground to keep strengthening aid and improving development outcomes. It is important for us to consider two commitments which should not be overlooked, as well as three challenges that must be still be overcome:

Commitment #1: Aid transparency

From the Honduran perspective, publishing user-friendly aid information on a timely basis under the International Aid Transparency Initiative standard will allow our citizens to track what aid is being used for and especially to monitor what it is achieving. This will also help the government manage aid more effectively, so that every dollar destined towards fighting poverty does so. We recently established a set of software tools called the Aid Management Platform, which improves the accessibility of aid information in Honduras through the web. This means advancing towards accountability to our citizens.

Commitment #2: Intensifying efforts for unfinished business

Negotiating conditionalities and use of country systems in Busan was one of the most difficult challenges for those representing developing countries, as there was opposition from some donors just as in prior high level forums in Paris and Accra. We must keep this mandate alive in the new Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation (GPEDC) that was created in Busan. The role that representatives from the developing world will play in the GPEDC Steering Committee is key to this. It is important for us to come together and define actions to advance on unfinished business, regardless of what country or region we come from. Africa, Asia, and Latin American representatives must be cohesive, for the sake of all of citizens around the globe. This requires strong leadership and lots of dialogue.

Lidia Fromm Cea (second from right) participating on a panel in Busan. Photo courtesy Lidia Fromm Cea.

Challenge #1: Learning to lead

Many developing countries are still learning how to lead mutual accountability processes with local ownership, and many of us are still exploring the best way to hold donors accountable on the basis of results. Still there was a 100% increase in developing countries that applied the Paris Declaration global monitoring framework between 2006 and 2011.  Despite the heavy workload that implementing the Survey on Monitoring the Paris Declaration meant for developing countries, governments increasingly came on board to monitor progress: 32 partner countries applied the survey in 2006, 54 countries in 2008, and 80 countries in 2011. Many countries are still just discovering the power of results and this is one of the reasons why the learning process that was sped up after Paris and Accra must not be aborted.

Challenge #2: The “global-light” formula

The risk that lurks in the new post-Busan dynamics is that conversations shift to the country level, making the global dimension too light. We expect that the GPEDC Steering Committee will make concerted efforts to maintain a proper balance between the global and the country level. From our perspective in Honduras, we learned that having indicators that were monitored at the global level has been key to shaping dialogue with donors in Tegucigalpa. We also learned that having results from monitoring exercises at the global level helped us take stock of recurrent behaviors and certain ways of managing aid that need to evolve. We have been giving our partners many friendly reminders…

Challenge #3: Leaving “business as usual” practices behind

In many ways, the new Global Partnership structure must engage in managing institutional and organizational change, ensuring that OECD and UNDP leadership have the know-how to reduce barriers, revise incentives, and ensure effective dialogue across multiple partners and sectors under this new Global Partnership. Who can develop capacities of those in the developed countries to deliver effectively in this new phase? Their understanding of what change means for developing countries is key, considering the last monitoring survey revealed that we achieved more advances compared to developed countries.

I strongly believe it is us, developing countries, who can most effectively enable them to understand the way aid is delivered in practice, across the different sectors where the aid funding really flows, like health, education, environment, social protection, etc. We partner countries can help developed countries and the OECD and UNDP to adequately link theory to practice; surely, this know-how may result in them providing the type of quality support the Busan commitments demand from all of us.

This guest post is part of an Oxfam-sponsored feature on Devex entitled, “One year later, where do we stand on commitments made in Busan?“ 

Guest Post by Rosa Musa of the African Women’s Development & Communications Network (FEMNET)

Rose Musa of FEMNET was a civil society representative from Kenya at the 4th High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan last year. Ilene Perlman/Oxfam America

Nairobi, Kenya – I set out early in the morning of September 10^th to join 35 other civil society colleagues from across the globe for a deliberation on the Sustainable Development Goals and the Post-2015 Development Agenda.

As the taxi meandered and navigated through the rubble and dust—characteristic of road work in progress—my gaze fell upon on a newspaper under the seat in front of me. The headline that caught my attention was utterly depressing:  Man Slaughters Five Sons After Quarrel with Wife. I went on to read the gory details of how battering his wife and threatening to kill her with an axe was a daily pastime for Mr. John Kiprono Kitui.

Working in an organisation that advocates for women’s rights in Africa, this is the reality we face every day. It demonstrates the challenges of matching policy and practice as 2015 approaches and we prepare to bid farewell to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The article ignited me. I thought, “How can this be explained in a world where gender equality is mainstreamed in all eight MDGs? Where countless conventions exist that are supposed to serve the hopes and aspirations of women?”

Those of us who work in the area of development and women’s rights clearly still have a lot of work to do.

As a pan-African organisation with members all across Africa, FEMNET works with and through women’s NGOs running programmes and projects at the national level.  The network collaboratively identifies our priorities, which currently range from women in leadership and governance to women’s economic empowerment to sexual and reproductive health to the institutional strengthening of women’s organisations and networks in Africa. FEMNET implements our programmes with the understanding that no society can be considered free or democratic unless all its members—especially women—have equal rights, equal access to opportunities, and equal control over resources.

And where tragedies like that of the Kitui family do not occur.

A starting point for realising this vision is implementation of the Busan Partnership Framework and all other processes that will follow the MDGs. More than anything else, as governments, donors, and other partners move from Busan to address development issues and aid financing, we need a paradigm shift that is truly transformative, just, and sustainable for women. Changes are needed in the aid architecture to achieve inclusiveness, to ensure legitimacy, and to correct the linked imbalances of power in the inexorably linked country-to-country and male-female relations.

FEMNET members demonstrating for women's rights. Photo courtesy of FEMNET.

Looking towards 2015 and beyond, civil society organisations must remain committed to the process by actively assisting donors, development agencies, and governments to transition from a narrow focus on aid delivery, to outcomes that ensure all human beings are treated equally. As a representative of FEMNET in Busan, I participated because we envisage an Africa characterised by women’s shift from victims to agents of change, using international legal and policy commitments to strengthen actions towards change at home.

We are all part of the solution.

This guest post is part of an Oxfam-sponsored feature on Devex entitled, “One year later, where do we stand on commitments made in Busan?“