Hunger and poverty can also force individuals into situations that can increase the likelihood of contracting deadly
diseases. In Malawi, recent famines created pressure for people in rural areas to migrate in search of food and work. But
in a vicious cycle, people who migrate face a higher risk of
contracting HIV/AIDS, and infection makes them less able
to work.18 This problem has exacerbated the HIV/AIDS
pandemic in country after country.
As communities face the need to increase food production
in order to address hunger, the environmental pressures can
be great. “Poverty, food scarcity, and population pressures
fuel deforestation and the overharvesting of vegetation,”
explain experts charged with developing a plan of action to
address Goal 1 to cut hunger.19 Evidence also suggests that
climate change will have a significant impact on developing
countries, where warmer, drier conditions will shorten the
length of growing seasons, an impact that will have a detrimental effect on crops.20
An Interconnected Set of Solutions
Just as the problems the MDGs seek to address are connected, so too are many of the solutions. An intervention in
one area can mean progress in others. Creating a fairer trade
environment will provide many countries with greater economic opportunities, driving economic growth and leading
to poverty reduction. In turn, poverty reduction can have an
impact on other areas such as hunger and disease.
One of the strategies for Goal 1 is to pursue ways of increasing agricultural productivity, particularly for smallholder farmers. Up to 75 percent of the world’s poor people live
in rural areas.21 The vast majority of them rely directly or indirectly on farming for their livelihoods. Increasing agricultural research, expanding irrigation, improving soil health,
providing better seed varieties, making fertilizer more available and helping farmers expand into higher-value crops will
help smallholder farmers produce enough food to feed their
families and have a surplus to sell on local markets.
Increasing agricultural productivity will also have secondary impacts—ripple effects in rural communities that will affect many of the other MDGs. Better harvests provide families with cash to pay for basic goods and services. If school
fees present a barrier to school attendance, extra money in
the pockets of poor families can be used to enroll children
in school. For girls, the longer they stay in school, the later
they marry and bear children, and that can positively impact
maternal health, family size and household income. School
attendance is also associated with a lower likelihood of contracting HIV/AIDS.
To achieve the MDGs, many strategies should be pursued
simultaneously, progress evaluated, and approaches modified as needed. Some strategies may produce surprisingly
strong impacts on the MDGs. What’s important is to learn
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Whose Millennium Development Goals?
Specific targets and time-bound commitments have
helped to galvanize public support for the MDGs, but
the targets have also come under criticism. William
Easterly, for example, has raised the concern that the
targets are inappropriate for areas such as sub-Saharan Africa, where difficult initial conditions will make
reaching the MDGs unlikely.
Easterly argues that strictly applying the MDG indicators makes Africa look worse than it really is, painting
an unfairly harsh and discouraging portrait of a region
in which many countries are nevertheless demonstrating progress against hunger, poverty and disease.24
Easterly concludes that the MDG targets should be tailored to match individual country conditions. This position has also been forcefully advocated by Jan Vandemoortele, a former co-chair of the U.N. Interagency
Working Group that created the MDGs. Vandemoortele
writes, “The content of the MDGs applies universally
because they reflect fundamental social and economic
rights. But their quantitative dimensions should not apply uniformly to all countries or regions.”25 In his article
“The MDGs: ‘M’ for Misunderstood,” Vandemoortele
urges a flexible approach that uses the MDGs as a
framework that countries adopt and modify to match
their particular situations.
Others have raised concerns that the MDGs focus
on poverty indicator outcomes rather than the core
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