MDGs, the Bad (by Michael Chong)

In 2000, the United Nations (UN) drafted the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) with the purpose of making the world a better place. Since then, many plans have been implemented and the UN is slowly moving towards achieving set targets. The news focuses on the great steps taken by many nations in order to accomplish the MDGs, yet nothing has been said about the consequences of their actions. What will happen if poverty levels decrease by 50% or deadly diseases are successfully combated? Will the MDGs really help to save human lives across the globe or will they just create more problems? It is important to assess the effects of the MDGs on the environment and its inhabitants, its costs to the global economy and finally, its resonance on an individual basis. Perhaps one of the greatest concerns of the pursuit of the MDGs is their effect on the environment. It would be ideal to provide clean water and an abundance of food for starving people. The economically prosperous countries have a role in helping achieve this goal, but they cannot be forced to feed others forever. The key is to provide machinery and supplies to teach farmers to grow their own food more productively, ensuring developing countries may eventually become self-sustaining. Such a feat requires offering underdeveloped nations irrigation techniques and modified crops resistant to diseases that have plagued them in the past. Yet, these two requirements alone hurt the environment as they infer procuring freshwater from a rapidly decreasing supply and decreases biodiversity in those areas. Combined, they have a profound effect on the ecosystem and thus on human beings. Admittedly, some places in the world are just not fit for farming. Perhaps new technologies will help to abate the harmful impact of external interference on the aforementioned environments.

On a different note, one must look at the private sector; no company works to lose money. Consider the scenario where a successful global partnership has been created, countries are released from high debt, and allowed to participate fairly in the global market. In the general scheme of things, foreign trade rises in developing nations and competition sets in. Competition is great for the economy as it forces sellers to hold prices down, but how low until there is no longer any profit made? Just as a store selling cheaper groceries will get more sales, so will foreign trade prosper when a larger bargain is offered. However, this may profoundly effect developed economies, as well as developing ones. One need only look at how the American population feels about outsourcing technical jobs to see that not everyone feels they will gain from a more competitive economy.

Saving human lives is a great idea, and ranks in the number one spot of the MDGs. The goal is to reduce child mortality by two thirds, reduce maternal mortality by three quarters, and combat diseases such as HIV and malaria. Achieving these goals could cause a huge increase in population. The fundamental question here is whether the MDGs can be upheld with such an increase in population. A rise in population requires more of everything; food, land, water, and homes. To provide people with the necessities of life, the usual course of events would be to turn towards nature and tap its resources again; however, there is a limit to what a nation can provide for its people. When the land fails the people, the nation is set back with emerging poverty, hunger and illness.

Like the circle of life, the MDGs seem to produce a circle of events beginning with a poverty-stricken nation, where people suffer from the effects of malnutrition, sickness and disease. The MDGs help them get back on their feet and allow the nation to prosper by letting it enter into the global market. The MDGs help the country with exports, giving it a chance to contend against others in the global market, yet a cascading effect occurs. The country experiences rapid population growth followed by a crisis of shortage in living necessities. Then, trying to take more than nature can provide, causing an increase in the problems the MDGs set out to solve. Fifteen years from now, it is likely that new development goals will be written, hoping to ‘reverse’ the process, but which will only succeed in continuing the cycle.

On a positive note, the consequences stated above stem from the MDGs but are not completely plausible. The opinions outlined are just possibilities of unchecked development after statistics show the MDGs achieved. In reality, an assessment of the impact of the MDGs must be done on a per nation basis. While some nations may gain for many years to come, some will be left behind in the dust.

Sources

"Are UN Goals Achievable." United Nations Association of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. 17 Oct 2003. 20 Feb 2005 <http://www.una-uk.org/United%20Nations/ungoals.html>.

"Millennium Development Goals." United Nations Development Programme. 20 Feb 2005 <http://www.undp.org/mdg/#Integrating>.

"Millennium Development Goals." The World Bank Group. Sep 2004. 21 Feb 2005 <http://www.developmentgoals.org/index.html>.

"Aid Guide." oneworld.net. 23 Feb 2005. 23 Feb 2005 <http://www.learningchannel.org/guides/aid>.

"United Nations Millennium Development Goals." United Nations. 21 Feb 2005 <http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/>.

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