{
  "title": "Making up for Lost Time: Getting Back on Track to the Millennium Development Goals",
  "publication": "IMF Blog, September 20, 2010",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.imf.org/en/blogs/articles/2010/09/20/making-up-for-lost-time-getting-back-on-track-to-the-millennium-development-goals",
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  "summary": "Many of the world’s macroeconomists—including here in the IMF—are currently busy reading the daily tea-leaves, attempting to divine whether the sputtering recovery in the advanced economies will hold, and gradually pick up steam, or fall back into the notorious “double dip.”",
  "sections": [
    {
      "heading": "Stakes and recent setback",
      "content": "- The global financial crisis, following the food and fuel shocks of 2007-8, delivered a severe blow to poor countries and has set back the poverty reduction agenda with only five years to go until the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) deadline.\n- Historical achievement: \"the number of people living in extreme poverty fell by a staggering 400 million from 1990 to 2005.\"\n- The piece frames the problem as global and interconnected: the fate of poor countries is increasingly tied to that of advanced economies."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Central macroeconomic imperative",
      "content": "- \"Everything hinges on restoring balanced, sustainable, global growth.\"\n- Priority: advanced economies and leading emerging markets should focus \"first and foremost on getting the growth engine up and running again to secure a sustainable global recovery.\"\n- Warning: without a durable recovery in these economies, \"all other efforts on the MDGs will come to naught.\""
    },
    {
      "heading": "Actions for richer countries",
      "content": "- Aid commitments:\n  - Richer countries \"must keep their Gleneagles promises on aid.\"\n  - They \"have delivered only about 60 percent of the scaled-up aid they committed five years ago, and less than half of what was promised to Africa.\"\n- Trade and market access:\n  - Poorest countries account for \"1 percent of global GDP, but only ½ percent of global trade,\" and that share \"hasn’t changed in the past 15 years.\"\n  - Proposed interim trade package:\n    - Grant \"full duty-free and quota-free market access to the poorest countries.\"\n    - Streamline \"the complex rules surrounding trade preference schemes so that poor countries can actually take advantage of them.\"\n    - Tackle \"the distortions in rich countries’ agricultural markets which depress prices for farmers in poor countries and inhibit trade.\"\n  - Completing the Doha Round is noted as important, but actionable interim reforms are emphasized."
    },
    {
      "heading": "Actions for low-income countries",
      "content": "- Infrastructure shortfalls:\n  - Especially in Africa, countries \"are badly lacking in infrastructure—notably power, but also roads and ports.\"\n  - Existing infrastructure \"is dilapidated due to years of neglect.\"\n  - World Bank estimate: Africa will need to spend \"$93 billion a year to close the 'infrastructure gap'—twice what those countries are currently spending.\"\n  - Even if aid commitments are met, \"this will not be enough to fund the needed improvements.\"\n- Financing and investment options:\n  - Mobilize other sources: \"domestic tax revenues, where collections currently fall well short of potential.\"\n  - Tap private investment, both local and foreign, which requires \"a better regulatory environment, stronger property rights, and less corruption.\"\n  - Consider more borrowing from the markets, but \"this is expensive and needs to be done carefully to ensure that debt problems do not recur.\"\n- Policy and social resilience:\n  - Rebuild \"policy buffers\" such as \"low debt, low inflation, and high reserves\" that \"protected countries from the worst of the crisis.\"\n  - Strengthen social safety nets \"to protect the most vulnerable.\"\n  - IMF will publish a paper on rebuilding policy buffers \"next month.\""
    },
    {
      "heading": "IMF role and support",
      "content": "- The IMF offers assistance through \"policy advice, financial support, and technical assistance.\"\n- Specific IMF support priorities highlighted:\n  - Help with \"strategies to scale up investment and to 'borrow safely.'\"\n  - Promote \"economic stability, an essential ingredient for strong, sustained growth.\"\n- Institutional engagement: IMF Managing Director participating in the United Nations MDG summit; IMF staff prepared \"a background paper on the macroeconomic foundations needed to attain the MDGs.\"\n\nSource: Making up for Lost Time: Getting Back on Track to the Millennium Development Goals (IMF blog, September 20, 2010).\n\n---\n\n Content in this bundle\n\n- 091610\n  - 091610 (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n  - 091610 (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n- Staff Paper\n  - Staff Paper (Markdown version){rel=\"alternate\" type=\"text/markdown\"}\n  - Staff Paper (PDF){rel=\"external\" type=\"application/pdf\"}\n\n---\n\n References\n\n- policy advice\n\nSource: https://www.imf.org/en/blogs/articles/2010/09/20/making-up-for-lost-time-getting-back-on-track-to-the-millennium-development-goals"
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    "Authors: Hugh Bredenkamp",
    "Published: September 20, 2010",
    "The global financial crisis, following the food and fuel shocks of 2007-8, delivered a severe blow to poor countries and has set back the poverty reduction agenda with only five years to go until the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) deadline.",
    "Historical achievement: \"the number of people living in extreme poverty fell by a staggering 400 million from 1990 to 2005.\"",
    "The piece frames the problem as global and interconnected: the fate of poor countries is increasingly tied to that of advanced economies.",
    "\"Everything hinges on restoring balanced, sustainable, global growth.\"",
    "Priority: advanced economies and leading emerging markets should focus \"first and foremost on getting the growth engine up and running again to secure a sustainable global recovery.\"",
    "Warning: without a durable recovery in these economies, \"all other efforts on the MDGs will come to naught.\"",
    "Aid commitments:",
    "Trade and market access:",
    "Infrastructure shortfalls:",
    "Financing and investment options:",
    "Policy and social resilience:",
    "The IMF offers assistance through \"policy advice, financial support, and technical assistance.\"",
    "Specific IMF support priorities highlighted:",
    "Institutional engagement: IMF Managing Director participating in the United Nations MDG summit; IMF staff prepared \"a background paper on the macroeconomic foundations needed to attain the MDGs.\"",
    "**091610**",
    "**Staff Paper**",
    "[policy advice](http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/survey/so/2009/INT102609A.htm)"
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