The MDGs after the crisis

The MDGs after the crisis

October 24, 2013

On April 23, 2010 the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) released a new report that analyzes how the global economic crisis has hampered progress on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Entitled, Global Monitoring Report 2010: The MDGs after the Crisis, the report notes that while the response to and recovery after the crisis is stronger than expected (GDP growth in developing countries is projected to accelerate to 6.3 in 2010), MDG progress has been seriously threatened.

Justin Yifu Lin, World Bank Chief, explained that “While the MDGs are still within reach in certain regions and countries, we know from past crises that human progress—whether in terms of income, nutrition, health or education—tends to decline sharply in bad times, while recovery in good times takes much longer.”

For overall MDG progress, the World Bank and the IMF emphasize the importance of dealing with malnutrition among women and children, and conclude that the proportion of people who suffer from hunger will most likely not be halved by 2015. The developing countries are still on track to halving extreme poverty by 2015, but the crisis has resulted in 53 million more people that will remain in extreme poverty by the same year.

The MDGs after the Crisis further acknowledges the uneven MDG progress across countries and regions, and explains that the trend is not dissimilar to pre-crisis periods.

The report commends the pre- and post- crisis efforts, and policy reforms and initiatives at both national and international levels without which the crisis would have had much direr and wider consequences. Finally, the report calls for continued commitment to good policies, investment in infrastructure and social sectors, effective service delivery, and global support.

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Document Type
Regions and Countries