The Millennium Development Goals

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Bibliographic Data

ID5769683
AuthorsA Ziai (0000-0002-2579-5263, Universität Hamburg, corresponding author)
Year2011
Volume32
Issue1
Pages27-43
Publication date2011-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThird World Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0143-6597 • E-ISSN: 1360-2241
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/01436597.2011.543811
OpenAlexW2079532028
LanguageEN
Citations received18

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) constitute a normative consensus in the development community at the beginning of the 21st century. This article examines that consensus from the perspective of post-structuralist discourse analysis by situating it in its historical context, comparing the Millennium Declaration with the UN International Development Strategy of 1970. The article illustrates the depoliticising bias of the main MDG documents and interprets the shift in favour of market-oriented solutions and non-antagonistic conceptions of global community as the principal manifestations of a significant shift in development discourse. Notes 1 K Annan, 'In Larger Freedom: Towards Development, Security and Human Rights for All', Report of the Secretary-General, UN document A/59/2005, 2005. 2 UN Millennium Project, Investing in Development: A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals (Overview), New York: United Nations Development Programme, 2005. 3 See above all, W Sachs (ed), The Development Dictionary: A Guide to Knowledge as Power, London: Zed Books, 1992; A Escobar, Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995; and M Rahnema (ed), The Post-Development Reader, London: Zed Books, 1997. 4 J Crush (ed), Power of Development, London: Routledge, 1995; D Mosse & L David (eds), The Aid Effect: Giving and Governing in International Development, London: Pluto Press, 2005; and IDS, The New Dynamics of Aid: Power, Procedures and Relationships, IDS Policy Briefing 15, Brighton: Institute of Development, 2001. 5 Development Assistance Committee (DAC), Shaping the 21st Century: The Contribution of Development Co-operation, Paris: OECD, 1996. 6 For a good introduction, see C Belsey, Poststructuralism: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. 7 M Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge and the Discourse on Language, New York: Pantheon, 1972; Foucault, Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977, New York: Pantheon, 1980; and Foucault, 'The subject and power', in HL Dreyfus & P Rabinow (eds), Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1983, pp 208-226. 8 UN Millennium Project, Investing in Development, p 3. 9 UN General Assembly, 'United Nations Millennium Declaration', UN document A/RES/55/2, 2000, para 11. 10 UN Millennium Project, Investing in Development, p 5. 11 Ibid, Annex, para 5. 12 J Martinussen, Society, State and Market: A Guide to Competing Theories of Development, London: Zed Books, 1997, ch 5. 13 UN Millennium Project, Investing in Development, p 4ff. 14 World Bank, World Development Report 2000/2001: Attacking Poverty, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. 15 Annan , 'In Larger Freedom', para 15. 16 J Friedmann, Empowerment: The Politics of Alternative Development, Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1992. 17 Annan, 'In Larger Freedom', para 27. 18 UN General Assembly, 'International Development Strategy for the Second United Nations Development Decade', UN Resolution no 2626, 1970, para 14. 19 UN Millennium Project, Investing in Development, p 39. 20 A thorough critique of the 'legend of the Big Push' is provided by W Easterly, The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good, London: Penguin, 2006, ch 2. 21 Thus we are faced with a strategy of depoliticisation, which has been analysed by J Ferguson, The Anti-Politics Machine: 'Development', Depoliticization and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1994; and TM Li, The Will to Improve: Governmentality, Development and the Practice of Politics, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006 as a structural feature of development discourse. 22 Annan, 'In Larger Freedom', para 220. 23 UN General Assembly, 'United Nations Millennium Declaration', para 5. 24 UN Millennium Project, Investing in Development, p 13. 25 Ibid, p xv. 26 HJ Chang, Kicking Away the Ladder: Development Strategy in Historical Perspective, London: Anthem Press, 2002. 27 Annan, 'In Larger Freedom', para 21. 28 Ibid, para 16. 29 Ibid, paras 1-2. 30 Ibid, para 18. 31 Ibid, para 222. 32 Ferguson, The Anti-Politics Machine. 33 UN General Assembly, 'United Nations Millennium Declaration', para 9. 34 W Sachs, Planet Dialectics: Exploration in Environment and Development, London: Zed Books, 1999, p 21ff. 35 UN General Assembly, 'International Development Strategy for the Second United Nations Development Decade', para 18h; and E Boserup, Women's Role in Economic Development, London: Allen & Unwin, 1970. 36 N Kabeer, Reversed Realities: Gender Hierarchies in Development Thought, London: Verso, 1994. 37 UN General Assembly, 'International Development Strategy for the Second United Nations Development Decade', para 75. 38 Ibid, para 18. 39 Ibid, para 3. 40 UN General Assembly, United Nations Millennium Declaration', para 11. 41 UN General Assembly, 'International Development Strategy for the Second United Nations Development Decade', para 6. 42 UN General Assembly, 'United Nations Millennium Declaration', para 11. 43 UN General Assembly, 'International Development Strategy for the Second United Nations Development Decade', para 43. 44 Ibid, para 12. 45 Ibid, para 18f. 46 This phrase refers to the tariff escalation practised by industrialised countries which charge higher tariffs for processed primary products, a measure directed against the consolidation of processing industries in the South. 47 Aid which is given on the condition of using it to purchase certain goods or services from enterprises of the donor country is referred to as 'tied aid

Declaration · General assembly · International development · Millennium Development Goals · Human Rights and Development · International Development and Aid

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