The Trouble with the MDGs: Confronting Expectations of Aid and Development Success

SummaryThe United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set targets that are implausible for a large number of countries. Many aid recipients will miss the goals, notwithstanding rapid progress by historical standards. Available estimates of the “cost” of the MDGs constitute necessary expenditures if the goals were to somehow be met, not expenditures that are sufficient for them to be met. Aid is on the rise; but when other necessary conditions fail to materialize, aid advocates who have claimed that more aid is sufficient may find aid blamed for false “failures,” undermining the constituency for sustained engagement with poor countries.