Claudio Schuftan from the People’s Health Movement (PHM) makes it very clear that he is an MDG skeptic. And he strongly persuades his readers to question the ‘deficit-filling approach’ to poverty, malnutrition and health. He takes it even further,…

Ok, I admit it – I have little interest in the Millennium Development Goals, despite working in the development arena since 1978. Do I need medical or psychological help? Is there something seriously wrong with me? Don’t I have a heart? Picture me…

Whatever we think about the US or about the MDGs, a speech by an American president is always worth analyzing. Development, in the end, is about power and power relations. And the US is still the greatest power in the world.On Wednesday, the final…

So, the MDG summit is over, and all those with an interest in the outcomes will be taking stock and deciding if, on balance, the event has been a success. They’ll be scanning the outcomes document, the transcripts of speeches and news reports dili…

Anticipation was building up around the UN headquarters yesterday morning. The traffic was, too. With almost the entire east side of the city in lock-down, roaring helicopters above our heads and an NYPD checkpoint on every corner, the arrival of…

I am now in a hilarious meeting. It is called the High Level Side-Event about ‘Innovative Financing for the MDGs’. It started by refusing entry to a group of forty people – journalists, NGOs, delegations – for half an hour. Nobody knew why. When w…

It seems New York City provides a fitting backdrop to the UN MDG summit. The city has many contrasting faces, as do the summit and the MDG-related side events.As the official conference kicked off yesterday only a few blocks away, I found myself i…

Some of the criticisms directed to the MDGs when they were agreed were about their minimalist nature. Many observers saw them as a perhaps too narrow distillation of the outcomes of the conferences of the 1990s. So the issue was: after all the eff…

The Millennium Development Goals claim our attention as today’s pro-poor aid agenda. Yet going by who gets what and from whom, the world’s real agenda looks distinctly pro-rich.The MDGs have been a singular success as a vehicle for many in the aid…

Last Sunday, my activities centred around Central Park. It was such a perfect day, sunny and warm. An Indian Summer. I started from the stiff and stuffy Upper East Side, where the only people you see during the week are cute little ‘Caucasian’ whi…