What we can learn from the UN Millenium Goals

More than 14 years ago, the United Nations Millennium Declaration was signed by leaders of 189 different countries. They committed themselves to 8 goals to be accomplished in 2015. For each of the eight Millennium Goals several KPIs were set to measure progress and succes. (see this link for a full list).

This is what US President Barack Obama had to say in 2010 about the progress at that time.

"Nor can anyone deny the progress that has been made toward achieving certain Millennium Development Goals. The doors of education have been opened to tens of millions of children, boys and girls. New cases of HIV/AIDS and malaria and tuberculosis are down. Access to clean drinking water is up. Around the world, hundreds of millions of people have been lifted from extreme poverty. That is all for the good, and it’s a testimony to the extraordinary work that’s been done both within countries and by the international community.

Yet we must also face the fact that progress towards other goals that were set has not come nearly fast enough. Not for the hundreds of thousands of women who lose their lives every year simply giving birth.  Not for the millions of children who die from agony of malnutrition.  Not for the nearly one billion people who endure the misery of chronic hunger.

This is the reality we must face -- that if the international community just keeps doing the same things the same way, we may make some modest progress here and there, but we will miss many development goals.  That is the truth.  With 10 years down and just five years before our development targets come due, we must do better."
(see for the full transcript here)

Now, with just one year to go, it doesn't look much better. Don't get me wrong. I really do think the work that has been done is extremely important. The United Nations might not be the perfect institution, but it is I think the only way to get so many countries set to do something. All eight goals do address serious issues that should get our attention and deserve to be solved.

My focus here lies on the things we can learn not only from the goals set, but also from the KPIs chosen to measure their success. 

Too many Goals
It is difficult to choose which one of the eight goals is more important. Fighting poverty? universal primary education? reduce child mortality, improve maternal health? You name it. Even if it is difficult or just almost impossible it is wise to choose a maximum of three. More is not only too ambitious, it is also a recipe for disaster. One cannot focus on eight different goals. It will take a tremendous amount of money to make all eight of them successful. Think of the task the UN faces explaining why so many goals failed and how difficult it will be to find 200 countries that again want to participate. 

Was ROI taken into account?
When you set these kind of goals and this many countries commit to them, you are sure that money will be spent. But these goals look like they were just chosen because the sounded good. Question is whether a good cost-benefit analysis was done. Of course things will change for the better. Question is whether things will also help in the long run. You want goals that help prevent setting new goals in the future.

Too many KPIs
In total there are 60 KPIs to measure the success of the eight goals set. The good thing is that concrete KPIs were set with concrete thresholds. Downside is that there are so many that is is just impossible to meet them all. If you have 60 targets, you really have none. With all negative consequences as a result, the least of which is the erosion of credibility.

KPIs are smart, but therefor not easy to reach
The world is a complex place. Many factors come into play when it comes to social issues. Politics, religious conflicts, war, corruption, failing economies, etc. complicate accomplishing the things you want to reach.

Long Timeframe
Fifteen years is a long time. It is difficult for people (let alone countries) to stay focused for so long. If you read the rest of the speech of Barack Obama you will notice that most of his speech is directed to the richer countries that seem to loose focus.

Diffuse responsibilities
Who is actually accountable for the reaching the goals? 189 countries? A country is not someone you can hold accountable. And even if you did find a person in 2000 that committed him/herself, he or she will probably not be around in 2015 to speak to that.

To summarize I want to quote Bjorn Lomburg who runs the Copenhagen Consensus Center. This center involves economists from all over the globe to think about the worlds biggest issues. More importantly they help selecting those issues with the highest ROI. This is what he had to say in an interview with Freakonomics Radio.

"There was actually no good cost and benefit analysis, it was just a number of targets that all sound really good. And generally I also think they really are very good. But now the U.N. is going to redo the targets from 2015 and fifteen years onwards. And this time, instead of having a very closed argument, it was basically a few guys around Kofi Annan who set out these targets back in 2000. And then everybody adopted them. This time they have said we want to hear everybody’s input. Of course that’s very laudable, but not surprisingly, it’s also meant that we probably have about 1,400 potential targets on the table. And so we need to make sure that we don’t just end up with a whole long list of Christmas trees as they call them in the U.N. jargon – you know, you just have everything and you wish for all good things, because they’re not likely to be as effective." (see here for full interview)

Hopefully next year the UN choses and develops their KPIs more wisely. If done right the promises could actually be fulfilled this time.