The main conclusions from the plenary sessions of the Policy Forum can be summarised as follows:
- focus must still remain on achieving the MDGs;
- developing country ownership of the new framework is essential and the approach must therefore be Southern-led;
- the obligations of the developed countries towards the achievement of the MDGs need clarification;
- international income and wealth redistribution should be a ‘right’ (‘automatic’ rather than discretionary), including international redistributive taxes and international inequality and its reduction should be given more emphasis;
- ethical and moral perspectives need emphasising within a global social justice, rather than a purely Indicator-driven, approach;
- ‘fragile’ states and global uncertainty need special treatment;
- the ‘quality’ of MDG achievements, rather than ‘quantity’, needs emphasising;
- the science and technology capacity of developing countries is critically important;
- processes which deliver the quantitative Indicators (MDGs) require more emphasis.
Serious research is needed to ensure the debate is well informed.
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This article comes from the IDS Bulletin 41.1 (2010) Proceedings of the DFID‐DSA‐EADI‐ActionAid Policy Forum
