Violent conflicts in states such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Sudan and the Balkans are at the centre of global politics. Big battles have been fought, enormous sums of money have been spent and troops have been deployed to end these conflicts. But is trying to defeat the supposed enemies – be they ‘freedom fighters’, ‘terrorists’ or state armies – the right approach? Or do these conflicts demand other policy solutions?
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are a visionary statement. They have focused the attention and intention of the world towards the challenge of our time. But they are a product of our past and as such are simultaneously unhelpful as they di...
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I welcome Andy Sumner’s contribution on the future of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). While there has been much debate around achieving the MDGs, and tracking progress of countries and regions, little has been said about the future of the...
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Before looking at a post-2015 MDG debate, we must remind ourselves that the MDGs never made a great deal of sense in development terms – they aren’t for the most part even goals but indicators of other activities. They are a muddle of good intenti...
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Sumner in his challenging paper “Beyond 2015”, encourages us to rethink the development policy and reconsider the need, nature and dimensions of MDG’s from the real expectations of poor people instead of donors’ interest. The author points out the...
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The MDGs have been a powerful catalyst for action in the international arena to promote development (broadly conceived). Among the strong points are its multidimensionality, its focus on targets that can be monitored, and its strong political legi...
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In this contribution we directly address the four queries posed for the debate. To do so we need to note at the outset that from a development perspective it can easily be argued that the adoption of the MDGs by the world community in September 20...
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As Andy Sumner has stated in his article of 26th May, 2009 “Rethinking Development Policy 2015”, the MDGs are viewed as a set of indicators for guiding poverty reduction and for holding international agencies and governments accountable to citizen...
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The eight MDGs could simply be summarized as a desire to reduce poverty (MDG 1) through addressing its various dimensions such as hunger, malnutrition, poor health (including addressing HIV/AIDS, malaria, and poor maternal health), lack of basic e...
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The MDGs are remarkable events in this 21 century in the sense that the goals have led to increased awareness, coherence and global mobilisation of resources for poverty reduction. The MDGs have also shown that poverty is not a national or regiona...
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Contemporary conflicts are very different from the conflicts of the twentieth century like the two world wars and the Cold War. Yet it has taken a long time for policy makers to realize that these ‘new wars’ require a different policy approach. Ev...
Hollandse Hoogte / Jenny Matthews Roadblock near Bo, Sierra Leone, October 1999. Since the end of the Cold War the international community’s attention to intrastate civil war, political instability and sta...
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The decline of interstate conflict following the Second World War and the ‘long peace’ of the Cold War implied a movement towards global peace. However, an eruption of ethnic conflicts in the early 1990s brought to light a different kind of confli...
In developing countries, the current economic crisis has led to a decline in exports of goods such as textiles and to a reduction in foreign investments. However, exports of IT-related services could be on the increase.
The deadline for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) isn’t until 2015. But it is time to begin thinking about the ‘MDG-plus’ agenda. But what, if anything, should replace the MDGs as a policy focus or new development paradigm?
René Grotenhuis is correct that there is little new about human well-being: human beings have written about it for centuries. But it would be wrong to assume that further thinking about the concept of well-being has nothing new to offer contempora...
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Fossil fuel reserves are being depleted. Volatile oil prices are wrecking economic havoc worldwide. Oil rents are supporting dictators, and fuelling conflicts. And carbon emissions from the use of fossil fuels represent one of the biggest threats...
International affairs can be examined at many levels, including transnational networks, relations between states, regional dynamics, foreign policy and the many links between local events in different countries. But there is a difference between a...
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In his article on well-being as a new development concept, Romesh Vaitilingam seems to offer new perspectives to develop a more comprehensive approach to development (‘Be well’, The Broker 12). But is it amount to anything more than just putting a...
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Increasingly, researchers are debating issues on the Internet, through blogs and other forums, rather than just in journals and at conferences. Each issue of The Broker will now include an ‘Online debate’ section, which provides summaries of exper...
When the Cold War ended, Mary Kaldor (along with several other scholars and analysts) was right to intuit that this momentous development was likely to impact decisively on the landscape of conflicts. Now, with the benefits of ten years of hindsig...
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