Policy Innovations The central address for a fairer globalization

A publication of the Carnegie Council

Changing Course: Alternative Approaches to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals and Fight HIV/AIDS

ActionAid International, November 4, 2005

ActionAid International USA

Exectutive Summary

ActionAid has criticized the MDGs for not being ambitious enough in seeking only to halve global poverty by 2015. Nevertheless, the fact that the international community has rallied behind them offers a key opportunity to assess the degree to which contemporary macroeconomic policies will enable countries to attain these goals by the target date of 2015—or not. Part 1 of this report lays out the status quo, including the dominant IMF model of economic development and the UN estimates of the costs and spending levels required over the next decade to achieve the MDGs and to fight HIV/AIDS effectively. It then contrasts these projected figures with the amount of spending currently possible in countries that have agreed to implement IMF loan programs. Our conclusions show a yawning gap between MDG needs and spending realities under business as usual policies, raising disturbing questions for governments and the international anti-poverty movement. Many civil society advocates working against poverty and HIV/AIDS are already concerned that macroeconomic policies enforced by the IMF block poor countries from being able to spend more on education, health and economic development. Yet there is a widespread lack of understanding as to exactly how or why this occurs. Part 2 of the report addresses this knowledge gap by exploring in depth the logic of the macroeconomic policies which drive IMF loan programs and explaining why these policies are so problematic.

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Read More: Development, Globalization, Governance, Health, Poverty, Global

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