Summary of the impact

Agreed by world governments in 2000, the UN's Millennium Development Goals established targets for global improvement of poverty incidence, education, health, environmental sustainability and gender equality by 2015. In 2008 Jeff Waage led a consortium of the University of London's Bloomsbury Colleges in a unique project commissioned by The Lancet culminating in The Lancet's publication of a monograph identifying the MDGs shortcomings, with recommendations for future goal setting. Its authority, novel approach and timeliness made a substantial contribution to current discourse on international development and have supported continued research and policy engagement on this critical global policy process.

Underpinning research

The project and ensuing publication, The Millennium Development Goals: A Cross-sectoral Analysis and Principles for Goal Setting after 2015, relied on experts from three Bloomsbury Colleges — the Institute of Education, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) — with additional contributions from policy advisors in India, Zambia, Malawi and Thailand. This case study focuses on research and activities of three contributors at SOAS' Centre for Development, Environment and Policy: Professor Andrew Dorward and Colin Poulton evaluated MDG 1, on Poverty and Hunger; Dorward also led on work on the `framing of future development goals', `the definition of development', and `guiding principles for development goals', and the conceptual framework linking these. Professor Jeff Waage, Director of LIDC, provided intellectual leadership for the project as a whole and evaluated MDG 7, on Environmental Sustainability.

All three have published extensively on agriculture and the environment and their relationship to global development, first at Imperial College, and, since 2007, at SOAS: Dorward and Poulton have researched the contributions of agricultural development to poverty reduction and economic growth (eg output e), while Waage has focussed on environmental issues in developing countries. The three have collaborated on different interdisciplinary projects linking these themes with health. In 2010, Waage co-authored with Sir Gordon Conway, then Chief Scientist at DFID, Science and Innovation for Development, which used the MDGs as a framework for exploring the role of science in reducing poverty (output d).

Each member of the project team for the Lancet study was an expert in at least one of the MDGs and undertook a detailed analysis of the design of the assigned MDG and of subsequent performance. These analyses were compared in inter-sectoral workshops to identify emergent, common features of MDG performance and to build an inter-sectoral consensus on future goal-setting. The surprising finding was that most MDGs encountered three similar problems relating to limited scope, ownership, and equitability of implementation. The team used these findings to establish a universal objective for future goal-setting and six principles for designing new goals. A particular aim was to remedy the lack of integration and of common purpose and process in existing MDGs.

The Lancet Commission was published shortly before the UN summit evaluating progress against MDGs in September 2010. Besides this strategic timing, the publication carried particular weight because of the high impact of The Lancet and the importance of health goals amongst the MDGs. A number of other institutions also prepared statements on future MDGs, but few undertook such comprehensive research projects and none engaged specialists from different sectors in studies that were cross-sectoral and cross-MDG. Most studies also focused on political context and relation to development theory, not on the delivery of specific outcomes.

The continued necessity and demand for research on MDGs and their evaluation have prompted Andrew Dorward to work and publish further on this subject (outputs a and b) with a particular contribution on thinking about sustainable development targets and indicators in agriculture and food security (output a).

References to the research

Outputs a, c (for Waage), d and f are submitted in REF 2.

Details of the impact

Since its publication in 2010, The Millennium Development Goals: A Cross-sectoral Analysis and Principles for Goal Setting after 2015 has been widely cited and circulated internationally by the UN, global charities, NGOs, think tanks and government ministries abroad. In the UK it has influenced government through the direct and extended engagement of SOAS project members with DFID and participation in Select Committee enquiries in 2012.

Just a week after its publication, the Guardian's "Poverty Matters" blog, supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, named the report as one of the six most significant to be published in the lead-up to the UN summit (1, below). Such swift accolades coupled with the status afforded by its publication in The Lancet ensured attention from the UN itself. This is corroborated by citation and multiple quotations both in a UN Economic Commission on Africa (UNECA) position paper for the regional workshop, "Towards an African Position on the Post-2015 Development Agenda" (Accra, November 2011), and in a subsequent formal UNECA report, MDG Report 2012: Assessing Progress in Africa toward the Millennium Development Goals in a section entitled, "Emerging perspectives from Africa on the post-2015 development agenda" (2). The World Family Organization (consultative status with the UN since 1948) has cited it in a background paper for its Social Protection Floor Advisory Group entitled, Enhancing the Millennium Development Goals: Reducing Inequalities and Improving Coherence by Eveline Herfkens.

Such citation by UN and UN-affiliated organisations with a strong stake in development was particularly important in the lead up to the 2012-14 processes of deciding on new International and Sustainable Development Goals. In this the publication and ongoing team activity continue to champion a cross-sectoral approach as well as improved targets and indicators within sectors.

An indicative selection of other organisations that have cited the Report includes:

• Nestlé Foundation: Annual Report (2010) (3, below);
• Overseas Development Institute: Malawi's Story: Improved Economic Conditions in Malawi: Progress from a Low Base (Vandemoortele with Bird, 2011) (4, below);
• Save the Children: After the Millennium Development Goals: Setting out the Options and Must Haves for a New Development Framework in 2015 (2012) (5, below);
• World Bank: MDGs That Nudge: The Millennium Development Goals, Popular Mobilization, and the Post-2015 Development Framework (2012) (6, below);
• European Centre for Development Policy Management: Measuring Policy Coherence for Development (report commissioned by The Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (2012) (7, below).

This last example cites the Lancet publication eight times, highlights the positive consequences it has had subsequently on the monitoring of the MDGs and directs readers especially to it for its , "more elaborate analysis of the challenges with the MDGs and a chapter on the framing of future development goals".

DFID, like most bilateral aid organizations in OECD countries, has based its development agenda and investment on the MDG targets. Staff in DFID tasked with progressing the post-2015 development agenda called on the project team in formulating its plans for future goals. Specifically, Professor Jeff Waage was asked to present the publication to the DFID Health Division and the post-2015 MDG team in May 2011. More recently, the team undertook for DFID a study on whether "stunting" (a measure of poor growth early in life) was a good cross-sectoral indicator for future goal setting. DFID commented in email correspondence that this study was useful and contributed to their post-2015 planning. (8)

In August 2012, the UK Parliamentary International Development Committee launched a Select Committee enquiry on the post 2015 development agenda. The team prepared a submission based on the 2010 publication and members' subsequent research. This received a very positive response from the Committee and Professor Andrew Dorward was invited on 4 October 2012 to give oral evidence to the Committee. The Committee report subsequently drew quotations from the submission and oral evidence (see paras 69-71, corroborating evidence), (9 and 10).

The above have been complemented by further face-to-face dissemination activities involving SOAS team members and the Overseas Development Institute, the Institute of Development Studies, Tearfund, CAFOD, BOND, the HUNDEE Oromo Grassroots Development Initiative (Ethiopia)and International Alert.

Dorward's work on sustainable development indicators in agriculture and food security has drawn the recent attention of the UN Sustainable Solutions Network (SDSN) Thematic Group 7 on Solutions for Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems, highlighting the continuing impact of the research through and beyond the impact period. The SDSN was launched by the UN Secretary-General in August 2012. Since July 2013, Dorward has been in email correspondence with the chair of the SDSN Thematic Group 7 who specifically recognised the value of his proposed indicators. The final report of thematic group 7 to the UN Secretary-General cites the output several times (pages 2, 17, 30, 38-39) making fundamental points about the importance of differentiated income related measures of food prices and access, and of the productivity of labour and other resources in considering sustainable agricultural development processes and indicators (11).

Sources to corroborate the impact

1. Guardian "Poverty Matters" blog: http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2010/sep/20/mdgs-pre-un-summit-reports?INTCMP=SRCH [Most recently accessed 22.11.13].
2. (UNECA) MDG Report 2012: Assessing Progress in Africa toward the Millennium Development Goals:
   http://new.uneca.org/sites/default/files/publications/mdgreport2012_eng.pdf [Most recently accessed 22.11.13].
3. Nestlé Foundation: Annual Report (2010);
   http://www.nestlefoundation.org/e/docs/AnnualReport2010.pdf [Most recently accessed 22.11.13].
4. Overseas Development Institute: Malawi's Story: Improved Economic Conditions in Malawi: Progress from a Low Base (Vandemoortele with Bird, 2011);
   http://www.odi.org.uk/publications/5480-malawi-economic-conditions-poverty-development-progress [Most recently accessed 22.11.13].
5. Save the Children: After the Millennium Development Goals: Setting out the Options and Must Haves for a New Development Framework in 2015 (2012);
   http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/sites/default/files/docs/After-the-Millennium-Development-Goals.pdf [Most recently accessed 22.11.13].
6. World Bank: MDGs That Nudge: The Millennium Development Goals, Popular Mobilization, and the Post-2015 Development Framework (2012);
   http://elibrary.worldbank.org/doi/pdf/10.1596/1813-9450-6282 [Most recently accessed 22.11.13].
7. Measuring Policy Coherence for Development, May 2012, a study commissioned by The Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development and published on the OECD website
   http://www.oecd.org/pcd/ECDPM%20Paper_%20Annexes.pdf [Most recently accessed 22.11.13].
8. Email received by Jeff Waage from colleagues at DFID can be provided upon request.
9. Parliamentary Select Committee Report:
   http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmintdev/writev/post2015/m30.htm [Most recently accessed 22.11.13].
10. Professor Dorward testimony to the Parliamentary Select Committee:
    http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=11581 [Most recently accessed 22.11.13]. Transcript at
    http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmintdev/657/121023.htm [Most recently accessed 22.11.13].
11. UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) (2013) Solutions for Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems http://unsdsn.org/files/2013/09/130919-TG07-Agriculture-Report-WEB.pdf [Most recently accessed 22.11.13].