Getting there

Abstract

With just 12 years left to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a greater sense of urgency is needed by all sides if the targets are to be met. Many developing countries are making substantial progress toward the MDGs as a result of improved policies, better governance, and the productive use of development assistance. But they could do more with the right mix of policy reforms and additional help. Scaling up efforts to meet the MDGs by 2015 presents both opportunities and challenges. By acting now, developed countries can hasten progress by providing more and better aid and by allowing greater access to their markets. Developing countries, for their part, will need to continue to improve their policies and the way they are implemented. Without greater impetus, there is a serious risk that many countries will fall far short on many of the goals. These findings emerge from a recent World Bank study that looked at how progress toward the MDGs at the country level could be accelerated through a combination of better domestic policies and improved governance, higher aid levels (in terms of official development assistance), more effective aid delivery, and improved market access to developed country markets. The study focused on 18 countries that account for approximately half of the world's poor and a third of global aid flows and are broadly representative of low-income countries with good policies. The 18 are Albania, Bangladesh, Benin, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Honduras, India, Indonesia, the Kyrgyz Republic, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Pakistan, Tanzania, Uganda, and Vietnam. The role for aid was also reviewed for two other groups of countries-low-income countries under stress and middle-income countries.