An MDG Recap: What Can We Learn from Where We Stumbled?

This site aims to be a resource on risk management and community resilience issues in the framework of the SDGs. But in order to understand just what needs to happen to effectively manage risk and increase resilience in the Pacific, it is important to learn from our track record on the MDGs. There were some positives, there were plenty of disappointing outcomes, and more than enough analysis of MDG results in the Pacific from which to learn in order to take steps forward in the face of climate change and increasing insecurities on a large number of issues.

Where to begin? There were 8 MDGs (compared to the 17 SDGs) and we could go through the results for each one individually. However, that has already been done (and done well, in a report by Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat. Read the full report here). Instead, we look to themes emerging from the report to help us understand why there has been failure to increase community resilience in the Pacific, and to better understand the risks that need to be ‘managed’ in order for sustainable development to actually happen.

First, although Pacific islands were a bit late to the game of MDG implementation, they weren’t the only ones, so underwhelming results cannot be specifically laid at the feet of slow government response. In fairness, the concept of the MDGs was initially difficult to grasp if you weren’t sitting in the UN General Assembly in person. Roles and responsibilities were delineated on paper but putting that into action was a bit more challenging, and a lot of work. Government work wasn’t oriented around these goals so it made adjustments more difficult. As a result, most of the work undertaken took place at the national level - the planning, the budgeting and data collection. The focus was on national response, and how communities contributed to national goals, rather than on national goals reflecting community needs. It is difficult to improve community resilience when all efforts are focused on national results. Community resilience necessitates a focus on individual communities. So we can learn this going forward: successful SDG implementation necessitates a reorientation of development priorities to focus on what it takes to be a resilient community, the amalgamation of which can form national goals. We’ll follow-up on this concept in a future post.

Second, so much of the ‘success’ in MDG implementation relied on official data. In the Pacific, not only is data collection poor, it is geographically difficult and prohibitively expensive. For example, data on poverty and employment relied on official statistics. In this case, that means formal employment. However, informal employment - such as agriculture, local transport and fisheries - is by far the biggest ‘employer’ of people in the region. The hard work that people do to earn an and meet their daily needs is not counted as ‘employment’ and this paints a negative picture of of were the baseline on ‘poverty’ really is. In fact, in a recent article the issue of how much the world relies on informal work took centre stage. The link informal work and sustainable development is clear: development planning processes generally ignore the needs of the informal sector and fail to see how informal work contributes to the economy. As such, plans for economic growth focus on existing local private enterprise (which is massively underdeveloped in the Pacific) and don’t tap into helping the informal sector such as independent fishermen and farmers lay foundations to turn their livelihoods into legal economic entities. It’s  a win-win - more private enterprise means a bigger tax base for government, and private enterprise can more easily access financial and market opportunities (although the barriers here are still important hurdles to overcome in the region). So we can learn this going forward: informal work is as important to community resilience as formal work is, the need is to understand how to better manage and respond to the higher risks and insecurities faced by informal workers in both urban and rural communities.

Third: geography. There is not much that can be done about this - it’s not like new roads can be built to remote islands. But geography is likely the single greatest impediment to rural communities access necessary services such as health care and the legal system, not to mention undermining the quality education, reliability of food and supply deliveries and general communications. This leads to greater risks to sustainable community development because there is less resilience to global crises that then have a direct impact: the financial crisis (costly goods and services become even more costly), the food crisis (food insecurity now ties in with the unreliability of food supply) and the fuel crisis (meaning deliveries and transport are even more expensive or just don’t happen due to cost). What is apparent is that analysts have allowed geography to become an underlying and ever present challenge to sustainable development when, from the point of view of community resilience, it could be looked at as an opportunity to improve risk management and drive innovation. How? On the issue of food, the region-wide preference for cheap imported food has actually increased risk and insecurity. There has been a massive decline in locally grown food (which is more nutritious) leading to increased household income going towards food expenses (not to mention an increase in poor health and diabetes). Prioritizing locally grown produce for community consumption takes out the worry of high cost, and there are plenty of examples of agriculture innovation to manage risks of drought and flood (see our Learning page for more information). It will never be a risk-free enterprise, but neither is relying on food imports. Similar innovation in education such as improving distance education opportunities (yes, investments in reliable communications is needed by government) and health care - bringing mobile doctors and nurses to communities regularly versus the cost of permanently locating facilities in remote areas where it is difficult to convince staff to reside). If development planning looks at how innovation can be used to overcome the challenge of geography, opportunities to focus on community development and resilience abound.

These are only a few of the many themes that emerged from analysis of MDG results in the Pacific. However, rather than looking at them through a negative lens, they provide a platform to assess opportunities to improve sustainable development because they focus on building community resilience, which contributes to national development rather than as stumbling blocks along the road to national government success in SDG implementation. Specifically, the story of the MDGs in the Pacific reinforces the need for the SDGs to be viewed as a community enterprise supported by government and development assistance. Given the way that community is structured in the region, it is the most effective way forward.