18 October 2012: Otaviano Canuto, the World Bank’s Vice President in charge of Poverty Reduction and Economic Management, recently discussed “unfinished business” from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), lessons learned that can be applied to designing and preparing for the post-2015 development framework, and issues in the design of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) called for by the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD, or Rio+20).
Canuto outlined his views on 17 October 2012 at the Fourth Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) World Forum on Statistics, Knowledge and Policy, which met in New Delhi, India, from 16-19 October 2012.
Regarding the MDGs, Canuto noted that, while the global poverty reduction target was met five years early in 2010, only 61% of the poverty target has been reached in Sub-Saharan Africa. He underlined shortfalls in meeting the MDG target on promoting gender equality and empowering women, noting that 71 countries limit the industries women can work in, 44 countries restrict the working hours of women relative to men, and in 47 countries women face barriers to signing a contract, opening a bank account, registering a business or getting a job. He called for increasing efforts in this area in the remaining years before 2015.
Regarding the post-2015 framework, he called for any new goals to be “truly universal, indivisible, complementary and inclusive,” focusing more on equity, inclusion and economic security. He urged a particular focus on gender equality, about which he pointed out the Bank has long asserted it is “both a right, and smart economics” in terms of its broader impacts on children, communities and economies at large. Noting data gaps in many countries on issues such as malnutrition, poverty, gender equality, water, sanitation and mortality, he also urged a strong focus on improving statistical capacity among developing countries, so that future goals rest on “reliable and complete data for monitoring progress, guiding policy, measuring results and supporting analysis.”
As for the SDGs, he outlined five elements for these to be effective: embracing a more comprehensive measure of national wealth to include natural, human, social and physical capital; including all three pillars of sustainable development, based on indicators of inclusiveness, equity and environmental sustainability; enabling geographical differentiation in targets, and including both top-down and bottom-up approaches; blending results-based long-term targets for 2030 or 2050 with policy targets for the short term; and combining easy-to-communicate goals with a series or more precise, sector-specific goals. [Statement of Vice President]