Why has the international community, despite its good intentions, made so little progress on overcoming poverty? This is by no means a simple question, but many experts agree that two of the key obstacles blocking the road out of poverty are weak political will and a continuing lack of accountability. With the 2015 deadline for the Millennium Development Goals almost upon us, it has become clear that most of the targets agreed upon by the international community back in 2000 will go unfulfilled. Dialogue on a new development plan is already underway, however, and lessons must be drawn from the MDG experience if the future framework is to prove more effective.

One of the central issues that must be addressed in the post-2015 strategy is the question of accountability. The absence of meaningful accountabilty mechanisms in the original MDGs is one of the main reasons that progress has been so limited. If states and other powerful actors are not answerable for the commitments set out in development plans, even the most laudable of socio-economic targets are likely to fall victim to the presures of short-sighted economic demands.


It is for this reason that CESR is collaborating with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on an advocacy publication entitled “The Millennium Development Goals: Who’s Accountable?”. The document will help position human rights in policy debates and international negotiations in the lead-up to the 2013 MDG Review Summit, at which parameters for talks on the new framework are likely to be hammered out.

Placing human rights accountability at the very heart of the post-2015 agenda will be critical to make sure the commitments made are honoured in practice.  Few consequences were attached to non-fulfilment in the original MDGs and, as a direct result, governments had little incentive to prioritize them. Moreover, there were few avenues for civil society or other actors to challenge those responsible for the lack of headway being made as the years rolled by. In accordance with international human rights law, the successor framework must be ever-mindful that states are legally obliged to make adequate efforts to ensure access to health care, housing, education, and other economic and social rights. The human rights framework can also ensure that all those involved in the development process - ranging from governments and donor agencies to international financial institutions and the private sector - are answerable to the communities and individuals their actions affect.

Viewing development through a human rights lens further requires that principles such as participation, non-discrimination, equality, empowerment and progressive realization, are taken into consideration. These standards are critically important, as it has become abundantly clear that economic growth alone is not an adequate measure of development. Indeed, the real test of progress must surely be the degree to which ordinary people can access their inherent human rights and enjoy freedom from both want and fear, without discrimination.

In recent years CESR’s efforts to hold governments to account for their obligations to fulfill economic and social rights, and its use of the Millennium Development Goals in this endeavor, has made it a leading voice on the synergies between the human rights and development agendas. This fact is reflected in the Center’s recent appointment to the Executive Committee of Beyond 2015, the leading civil society network pushing for a more effective global development plan. The international campaign, which draws together over 280 organizations from all over the planet, is working to create consensus among civil society about the design of the new goals, and to thereby create a more inclusive and effective future framework.

Our continuing efforts in this arena come as the international community approaches a critical juncture. Both the 2010 High-Level Plenary Meeting on the MDGs and the June 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development (“Rio+20”) failed to deliver the kind of commitments that are so badly needed if we are to create a better future. Although a number of significant human rights comitments were reaffirmed, it is far from certain that the international community will succeed in shifting the trajectory of global develoment onto a just, sustainable and human rights-realizing path.

Most importantly, the disheartening statistics and technocratic language that so-often dominate the discourse of international development represent real human lives and unnecessary suffering on a massive scale. It is for this reason that the failures of the past cannot and must not be repeated in the post-2015 framework.