The Millennium Development Goals

Workshop

The Millennium Development Goals: Beyond Averages

In September 2000, at the beginning of a new millennium, 189 world leaders gathered at the United Nations World Summit for a historical event of global partnership that lead to the adoption of the Millennium declaration. The commitment of World Leaders to eradicate poverty took shape in the Millennium Development Goals, specifying 8 goals with time bound targets designed to ensure human rights and social justice with a deadline of year 2015. There is more to human development than the MDGs, but these goals provide a crucial benchmark for measuring progress towards the creation of a more just, equal and less impoverished world order.

In year 2005 the world leaders gathered again to review progress towards the MDGs. The balance is that progress is uneven. While some countries are well ahead in a number of goals and others have already reached some targets, there are countries where the progress is far from what is required. Both in countries with good progress and in countries lagging behind, there are population groups that suffer from more acute deprivation. The spirit of the MDGs is one of equity. Progress towards the MDGs should include all population groups in all countries. And because national averages can conceal pockets of deprivation, going beyond national averages is an imperative if one is to fully reach the MDGs. It is not enough to achieve the MDGs within the average, the MDGs must be reached equally by all.

As a modest contribution to the aim of achieving the MDGs for all population groups in countries, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and International Poverty Centre of the United Nations Development Programme (IPC-UNDP) took the initiative of creating a statistical instrument to provide solid evidence to the policy dialogue and debate to accelerate progress towards the achievement of the MDGs in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). Taking further this initiative, IDB created the Equity and Social Indicators Information System (EqxIs) that includes disaggregated estimates of MDG and related social indicators for 22 countries in the LAC region. The EqxIs system is a statistical tool that helps to identify levels and progress of the MDGs in LAC countries disaggregating indicators by gender, ethnicity, urban/rural areas and income quintile.

To promote the use of disaggregated data in evidence based policy debate, the IDB and the IPC, co-sponsored by the Department for International Development (DFID) and the Institute of Applied Economic Research (IPEA), are organizing a workshop to help countries in their efforts to accelerate progress towards the achievement of the MDGs as defined in national development plans of countries in the LA region.

The main objective of the workshop is to motivate the use of statistical information in policy decision making and policy management. With this objective in mind the workshop will seek to achieve the following:

A better understanding of MDG and related social indicators;

• A better understanding of the relevance of disaggregating social indicators promoting their use as an important input in policy making;
• A more intensive use of MDG disaggregated data base systems, such as the EqxIs and other available in the region;
• Raise awareness of the relevance of disaggregated data base systems so that national statistics institutes acquire full ownership of such systems;
• Promote the adoption of initiatives by national statistics institutes to create and develop these type of databases, with a comprehensive and timely coverage of data, including other surveys and administrative information;
• Contribute to better policy analysis and management for a deeper and more inclusive human development in Latin America.

The workshop will be organized around three major activities. First, participants will attend the conference The Millennium Development Goals in Latin America: Inclusion and Human Development, which will consist in three presentations illustrating the use of disaggregated data to inform policy making for accelerating progress towards the MDGs. Second, participants will engage in on-hands exercises using disaggregated data included in the EQxIS system, emphasizing the proper interpretation of results and the construction of indicators. Third, participants will elaborate and discuss an MDG report using disaggregated data from a specific country.