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ABSTRACTThis article gives an insider's view of the origin of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the aim of which was two‐fold: to rescue the Millennium Declaration from oblivion and to expand the development narrative beyond economic growth. The former has been successful, but not the latter. Since its establishment, the MDG agenda has been permeated with the idolatry of literalism and sanitized to fit the conventional development paradigm. Statistics have been abused to fabricate evidence of success. The great paradox is that poverty is increasingly regarded as a multi‐dimensional phenomenon whilst its quantification remains essentially one‐dimensional, which reinforces a money‐metric perspective of the MDGs. The agenda has been cut back to a standard set of macroeconomic, sectoral or institutional reforms of a technical nature. However, the MDG agenda implies fundamental transformations in society, which are invariably driven by domestic politics and local actors. The world is off track, not because of insufficient economic growth but mostly because people in the bottom quintiles have benefited disproportionately little from national progress. As long as the world continues to turn a blind eye to the growing inequities within countries, the MDGs will be mission impossible. For the remaining period, their meaning is best described as 'Minding Development Gaps'.

The paper starts with an overview of the past and the present wage policies and subsequently looks into the future by analysing the indicators of the fifth development plan 1984-1988

AbstractIn 1990, a target of universal access to basic education by the year 2000 was set by two global conferences. Ten years later, however, it was clear that the target had not been met. Too many countries had made insufficient progress, and although many of the reasons for this inadequate progress were country‐specific, one factor stood out in virtually all countries: inadequate public finance for primary education. In 2000, the Millennium Summit set a new target date for achieving 'education for all' of 2015. This article updates the global and regional cost estimates for reaching that target. The estimates are based on the most recent country‐by‐country data on budgetary expenditure, population and enrolment trends, and unit cost. The annual additional cost of achieving 'education for all' in developing countries by 2015 is estimated at US$ 9.1 billion. Although this is affordable at the global level, individual countries will need considerably more resources than are currently available. However, official development assistance (ODA) has been declining, and the share of ODA allocated to basic education has changed little over the past decade. Therefore, although affordable, the target of universal basic education by 2015 is likely to be missed, just as it was in 2000, without a major change both in ODA and national budgets.