Millennium development goals: are international targets now more credible?

The Millennium Development Goals for Education and Health stand a better chance of mobilizing resources and galvanizing action to achieve their targets than earlier global and regional attempts at development target setting. The reason for this is that many of the poor countries for which the MDGs are a particular challenge have adopted monitored poverty reduction strategies which are internationally supported and institutionalised through the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper process, and which give prominence to MDG-consistent sector strategies in education and health. These strategies bear strengthened political commitment, and are increasingly reinforced technically by results-oriented approaches to the planning and management of public expenditure.