The MDGs and the incomplete relationship between development and foreign aid

The literature on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is roughly divided into interest in political and economic exogenous shocks, analyses of longer term, structural impediments to meeting the MDGs by 2015, the appropriateness of the specific goals themselves to international development, and questioning the very use of a goals–targets–indicators approach to development and attempts to redirect debate towards more systemic political change. This paper draws from the fourth of these streams. It investigates the degree to which bilateral donor needs and domestic institutional norms (especially those that have grown up around policy and public sector management, along with foreign policy) influenced the goals–targets–indicators form of the MDGs, and the manner in which donors incorporate the MDGs into their aid programming.