Waage et al (2010)

Question 1

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) represent an unprecedented global consensus about measures to reduce poverty. The eight goals address targets to increase incomes:

Answer 1

Reduce hunger; achieve universal primary education; eliminate gender inequality; reduce maternal and child mortality; reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria; reverse the loss of natural resources and biodiversity; improve access to water, sanitation, and good housing; and establish effective global partnerships.

Question 2

From our cross-sectoral analysis, we conclude that future goals should be built on…

Answer 2

a shared vision of development, and not on the bundling together of a set of independent development targets.

Question 3

Gaps in goals could have contributed to under- investment in areas that are key to realisation of the MDGs’ overall development vision. For instance…

Answer 3

Considering that most of the world’s poor people are rural farmers, and that agricultural production and its distribution are key factors in reducing hunger, the absence of agricultural targets from MDG 1 is striking.

Question 4

The interactions between education, poverty reduction, health, and gender are complex…

Answer 4

Primary education provides access to higher levels of education, which raises earnings, while higher levels of female education lead to improvements in child health care.