What do people want for health in the post-2015 agenda?

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are eight international development goals to be achieved by 2015 addressing poverty, hunger, maternal and child mortality, communicable disease, education, gender inequality, environmental damage and the global partnership. Most activities worldwide have focused on maternal and child health and communicable diseases, while less attention has been paid to environmental sustainability and the development of a global partnership. Up to now, several targets have been at least partially achieved: hunger reduction is on track, poverty has been reduced by half, living conditions of 200 million deprived people enhanced, maternal and child mortality as well as communicable diseases diminished and education improved. Nevertheless, some goals will not be met, particularly in the poorest regions, due to different challenges (e.g. the lack of synergies among the goals, the economic crisis, etc.). The post-2015 agenda is now under discussion. The new targets, whatever they will be called, should reflect today's political situation, health and environmental challenges, and an all-inclusive, intersectoral and accountable approach should be adopted.

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“…To achieve this aim, we should be able to ensure that people not only survive but enjoy good health throughout their lifespan (46, 51). …”

Section: The New Goals: Picking and Choosingmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Millennium Development Goals: experiences, achievements and what's next

Lomazzi

Borisch

Laaser

2014

Global Health Action

149

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“…Authors describe the creation of the MDGs as being led by a few country actors who decided on the choice of goals with very little involvement from developing countries. In contrast, the World Health Organization is currently engaging member states, civil society, private sector and academia to help with the post-2015 development agenda (UN Task Team, 2013). However, ‘too many cooks in the kitchen’ may make consensus on common goals difficult, according to Vandemoortele, architect of the MDGs and UN advisor for the agenda post-2015 (Jones, 2013).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Limitations of the Millennium Development Goals: a literature review

Fehling

Nelson

Venkatapuram

2013

Global Public Health

239

121

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With the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) showing uneven progress, this review identifies possible limitations arising from the MDG framework itself rather than extrinsic issues. A multidisciplinary literature review was conducted with a focus on limitations in the formulation of the MDGs, their structure, content and implementation. Of 1837 MDG-related articles, 90 met criteria for analysis. Articles describe MDGs as being created by only a few stakeholders without adequate involvement by developing countries and overlooking development objectives previously agreed upon. Others claim MDGs are unachievable and simplistic, not adapted to national needs, do not specify accountable parties and reinforce vertical interventions. While MDGs have promoted increased health and well-being in many countries by recognising and deliberating on the possible constraints of the MDG framework, the post-2015 agenda may have even greater impact.Complex problems have simple, easy to understand, wrong answers (Henry Louis Mencken)

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“…The HLP also emphasised each goal must “Be grounded in the voice of people , and the priorities identified during consultations, especially children, youth, women and marginalised and excluded groups” [ 12 ]. Certainly, people want to participate, in both the post-2015 agenda setting and goal monitoring phase [ 18 , 19 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Community participation in formulating the post-2015 health and development goal agenda: reflections of a multi-country research collaboration

Brolan

Hussain

Friedman

et al. 2014

Int J Equity Health

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Global discussion on the post-2015 development goals, to replace the Millennium Development Goals when they expire on 31 December 2015, is well underway. While the Millennium Development Goals focused on redressing extreme poverty and its antecedents for people living in developing countries, the post-2015 agenda seeks to redress inequity worldwide, regardless of a country’s development status. Furthermore, to rectify the UN’s top-down approach toward the Millennium Development Goals’ formulation, widespread negotiations are underway that seek to include the voices of people and communities from around the globe to ground each post-2015 development goal. This reflexive commentary, therefore, reports on the early methodological challenges the Go4Health research project experienced in its engagement with communities in nine countries in 2013. Led by four research hubs in Uganda, Bangladesh, Australia and Guatemala, the purpose of this engagement has been to ascertain a ‘snapshot’ of the health needs and priorities of socially excluded populations particularly from the Global South. This is to inform Go4Health’s advice to the European Commission on the post-2015 global goals for health and new governance frameworks. Five methodological challenges were subsequently identified from reflecting on the multidisciplinary, multiregional team’s research practices so far: meanings and parameters around qualitative participatory research; representation of marginalization; generalizability of research findings; ethical research in project time frames; and issues related to informed consent. Strategies to overcome these methodological hurdles are also examined. The findings from the consultations represent the extraordinary diversity of marginal human experience requiring contextual analysis for universal framing of the post-2015 agenda. Unsurprisingly, methodological challenges will, and did, arise. We conclude by advocating for a discourse to emerge not only critically examining how and whose voices are being obtained at the community-level to inform the post-2015 health and development goal agenda, but also how these voices are being translated and integrated into post-2015 decision-making at national and global levels.

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What do people want for health in the post-2015 agenda?

Cited by 11 publications

References 2 publications

The Millennium Development Goals: experiences, achievements and what's next

The Millennium Development Goals: experiences, achievements and what's next

Limitations of the Millennium Development Goals: a literature review

Community participation in formulating the post-2015 health and development goal agenda: reflections of a multi-country research collaboration

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