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Scoring the millennium goals: economic growth versus the Washington consensus.
According to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, "[based] on current trends, most Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) will not be met by most countries." (1) This assessment, issued in 2004, is widely shared and reinforced by a 2005 United Nations report. (2) The joint Bank-Fund report identifies the first of "the three essential elements" urgently needed if most countries are to reach the MDGs as 'Accelerating reforms to achieve stronger economic growth." (3) The other two essential elements include increased and improved delivery of human development and related services, and support from developed countries and international agencies. These three elements have also been emphasized by the UN report, which paid particular attention to the case for increasing aid.
There is no denying that sustained, rapid economic growth is necessary for reaching the MDGs. (4) Aside from its most obvious and direct bearing on reducing income poverty and halving the number of people living on less than a dollar a day by 2015, economic growth will also facilitate the provision of resources vital to achieve other MDGs. There is also no disputing the joint IMF-World Bank report in its emphasis on the salience of economic policy reforms rather than just focusing on increased financing for improved growth. But what kinds of reforms are to be accelerated for improved growth? And what role should the providers of development assistance, particularly the Bretton Woods Institutions (BWIs), play in helping to bring them about? The answers to these questions in the joint Bank-Fund report are more controversial, as this paper will show. There are two distinct, though overlapping strands of thinking on these questions. One pertains to developm...See the full content of this document
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