International Development CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by World Vision UK

1.1 World Vision is a child focused Christian relief, development and advocacy organisation dedicated to working with children, their families and communities to overcome poverty and injustice. World Vision is the world’s largest local charity working in 100 countries to improve the lives of 100 million people worldwide.

1.2 World Vision UK is part of the Beyond 2015 coalition and endorses the Bond Beyond 2015 UK submission. In this additional submission we articulate World Vision’s specific message that while having contributed to valuable progress in improving the well-being of children, the MDGs have failed to prevent many of the poorest being left behind. The new goals should target the most vulnerable both in terms of countries (being tailored to conflict affected and fragile states) and also within countries (setting targets for lifting the most vulnerable out of absolute poverty).

2. Lessons learned from the adoption of the International Development Targets and the Millennium Development Goals: in particular how effective has the MDG process been to date

2.1 World Vision believes that the MDGs have made a positive contribution to greater

well-being in the developing world. We have also learned valuable lessons including:

2.2 Global goals have value—a global framework can galvanize developed and developing countries around clear, measurable goals and so we believe a successor is worth the time and effort it takes to develop and sustain.

2.3 Long-term global goals stimulate reflective, joined-up debate around development: too often the legitimate need to account for the use of resources, combined with a less welcome focus on short-term horizons, means that we focus on short-term results in narrow sectors. The global goals push us towards thinking about long-term, sustainable, change and how different issues inter-relate to determine the well-being of the world’s poor.

2.4. However a lack of a focus on equity has limited their impact on the world’s most vulnerable children and without a clearer focus on the most poor, there is a risk that they will continue to be left behind. Four main categories are being left behind (two overlapping groups of countries, and two overlapping groups of people within countries).

2.5 Firstly the poorest countries (Lower Income Countries) are lagging behind. Recent World Bank figures show that globally, MDG 1 (to halve poverty) has been reached: the overall percentage of the population of the developing world living below $1.25 a day fell by 30% (22% in 2008 down from 52% in 1990). However there was a much smaller drop (only 9%) in the Lower Income Countries (down from 56.9% in 1990 to 48.5% in 2008). So in these countries nearly half the population still live in poverty—representing just over 25% of the world’s poor.

2.6 Another group that risks being left behind are fragile states. No low-income fragile state has met any of the MDGs. A third (33.4%) of the world’s poor live in the 45 countries identified as fragile by the OECD, with 40.3% of their populations living below this $1.25 dollar a day threshold.

2.7 Within countries, it is clear that the most vulnerable (represented by the bottom income quintile—the 20% with the lowest incomes) risk being left behind. Globally the bottom 20% earn between just 1 and 2% of the world’s income.

2.8 And the group that suffers most from this stark inequality is children, who are disproportionately represented in this bottom group. Over a quarter of all children in the world are located in this bottom 20% and this disadvantage in early life robs them of the opportunities to live and flourish. To give just a few examples drawn from Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) and UNICEF analysis:

2.9 In Nigeria, children from the wealthiest households are 13 times more likely to be vaccinated than those from the poorest households.

2.10 In the Philippines, over 90 percent of women in the wealthiest households are assisted by a health professional at delivery, compared to only 25 percent of women in the poorest households.

2.11 In the 26 countries in which under-five mortality rate have fallen by 10% or more since 1990, in most (18) the gap between the child mortality rates of the richest and poorest quintiles has either grown or remained unchanged. And in 10 of these 18 countries, this breach has risen by at least 10%.

3. How should the “Sustainable Development Goals”, following Rio +20, relate to the “Development Goals” being considered by the High-Level Panel?

3.1 It is unfortunate that two parallel, and potentially competing, processes have been set up to look at global development goals post-2015, but what the UK Government must acknowledge is that the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals reflects the suspicion (particularly amongst the G77 countries) that the High-Level Panel’s recommendations will be driven by the world’s most powerful countries. As such David Cameron, in his capacity as co-chair of the Panel and hosting the G8 in 2013, must reach out to the SGD Open Working Group and demonstrate that the High Level Panel reflects the views of the world’s poorest people.

4. The coverage of future goals: should they be for developing countries only or should progress be monitored in all countries?

4.1 If the success of the future goals is determined by their ability to lift the most vulnerable out of poverty, then progress should be monitored primarily in developing countries. However the drivers of progress are to a significant degree located in developed country policies, and it is absolutely right that attention should be given to these “enablers” and that developed countries are challenged to commit to goals around climate change, corporate transparency, tax and trade practices as well as development finance, including ODA. But these are means to the end of lifting the world’s most vulnerable out of poverty and a failure to agree on these means should not be allowed jeopardise agreement on goals around the ultimate end of poverty reduction.

5. The process: are the right voices being heard? What are the opportunities for and constraints to global consensus?

5.1 We broadly endorse the process and the ambition to be much more consultative than when the MDGs were agreed. In particular we welcome the UK government’s constructive engagement with the Beyond 2015 movement. Extensive consultation does run the risk of overloading the process with all development concerns. Not all development issues require a goal shaped solution, and so we need a legitimate group (including a civil society voice) be able to consider all the inputs and turn that into a coherent and clear set of goals.

5.2 Global consensus would be more likely if the new framework is not overloaded with goals to address every concern, but focuses on the main outcomes that matter for the poor—around incomes, food security, nutrition, health, education and voice and experience of good governance and absence of conflict.

5.3 Given that the new goals will define the world that children will inherit, World Vision calls for the voice of youth to be incorporated and significantly weighted in the process of identifying the key outcomes that the goals will promote. Our own youth consultations will feed into the Beyond 2015/IDS Participate project and these findings should be carefully considered by the Panel.

6. Targets: was the MDG “target-based” approach a success? Should it be retained? How should progress be measured?

6.1 The new goals must increase the well-being of the most vulnerable, not just move the maximum number of people across what can be arbitrary lines. The current MDGs effectively incentivized governments to marginally increase the well-being of those closest to passing a certain threshold, rather than address the well-being of the most disadvantaged (for whom even a significant increase in their well-being may not have moved them across the threshold). For example the main target for MDG 1 on reducing poverty was to reduce “the proportion of people whose income is less than one dollar a day”. This created an incentive to increase the income of someone on 90 cents a day by 10 cents, rather than increase the income of someone on 50 cents a day by 40 cents. There were some attempts in the indicators to target the most vulnerable (such as for MDG 1 the share of the poorest quintile in national consumption) but these were not well designed and were largely dropped from the MDG process.

6.2 Evidence for this can be found in the latest World Bank poverty figures which report that the “number of people living between $1.25 [the revised poverty threshold] and $2 has almost doubled from 648 million to 1.18 billion between 1981 and 2008” and that there is a “marked bunching up just above the $1.25 line”.

6.3 Improved, more disaggregated, data now allows us to better measure change in the poorest population groups, and so the new set of goals should include indicators not just of overall progress (at the international and national level) but improvements in well-being of the poorest, including the most vulnerable children.

6.4 Such targets not only focus on the most vulnerable, but help us to address some of the causes of conflict and fragility. Sub-national targets in countries with large inequalities across regions can be set in line with the “New Deal for Fragile States” model.

6.5 Measuring progress should be owned by national governments, but incorporate the voice of civil society which can play a role in assessing progress and holding national governments, as well as the international community, to account for their commitments.

7. Financing global goals: are new mechanisms needed?

7.1 World Vision recognises that aid plays a decreasing role in development and we should be all working towards all countries graduating from aid. However in the medium term, over which these goals would be relevant, there remains a significant financing gap. World Vision believes that developed countries should be absolutely committed to reaching the 0.7 target. Recent ODI analysis on what it would take to lift the poorest out of poverty finds that donor countries “need to contribute $297 billion, or 0.66% of their GDP”.

7.2 We would warn against simplistic “either-or” approaches to aid versus country’s devoting more of their resources for aid. While some forms of aid can create dependency, others can leverage greater domestic investment. For example there is evidence in health that governments are less willing to invest in long term system strengthening without assurance that donors are with them for the whole journey.

8. The content of future goals: what would be a good set of global goals? What continuity should there be with the MDGs, and how should the unfulfilled MDGs be taken forward?

8.1 World Vision believes there should be continuity between the MDGs and a new global framework, ensuring that the unfinished business of the MDGs is completed. As outlined above, this may mean new targets that ensure that the poorest groups in society are addressed—with sub-national targets for particularly vulnerable population groups.

8.2 In existing themes covered by the goals, World Vision believes that some may require a revised focus, recognising the interconnectedness of human development—for example in health there should be consideration of how the goals might encourage Universal Health Coverage and action on the social determinants of health.

8.3 New themes that should be addressed include governance and we support calls for a new focus on transparent, participatory and effective governance.

9. Summary of Recommendations

9.1 World Vision argues that the post-2015 development goals target the most vulnerable. Specifically that includes lower income and fragile states, but also within countries, those living in the poorest 20% of households (many of whom are children). As such the new set of goals should include indicators not just of overall progress (at the international and national level) but improvements in the well-being of this poorest 20%.

9.2 There should be continuity between the MDGs and a new global framework, ensuring that the unfinished business of the MDGs is completed but also amending current goals and introducing new ones, particularly around peace transparent, participatory and effective governance.

9.3 In shaping the new goals, World Vision welcomes the UK government’s constructive engagement with the Beyond 2015 movement and urges placing a great emphasis on consulting with those whose voice is often ignored. World Vision in particular calls for the voice of youth to be incorporated and significantly weighted—it is their future we are shaping.

9.4 Measuring progress should be owned by national governments, but incorporate the voice of civil society which can play a role in assessing progress and holding national governments, as well as the international community, to account for their commitments.

October 2012