The Millennium Development Goals and urban poverty reduction: great expectations and nonsense statistics

This paper outlines the importance of the Millennium Development Goals for urban populations, and some reasons for concern regarding their implementation. It argues that the institutional structures and processes of international donors and national governments can be incompatible with the effective achievement of poverty reduction. It also explains that the relevance of the Millennium Development Goals for urban populations has been neglected by many authors and is obscured by inaccurate statistics. These goals set much store on specific targets for reducing income-based poverty and the proportion of people lacking provision for water and sanitation; but the statistics currently used to assess the number of poor urban dwellers and the level of their provision are inaccurate and based on inappropriate criteria. These statistics need to be revised to reflect the incomes that people actually need to avoid income poverty in urban areas, and the kinds of improvements in water and sanitation that really deliver better health.