The Conversation: New development goals on health need more work to be realistic
Erica Penfold, research fellow at South African Institute of International Affairs

“…The power of the original Millennium Development Goals was in their simplicity and clarity. By contrast, the drafts proposed by negotiating committees for the new goals are complicated and lack focus. This suggests that the post-2015 goals will have comparatively limited value and impact. … Ideally, each Sustainable Development Goal target should receive consistent attention if there is to be a universal focus on successfully attaining all 17. There also needs to be accurate collection of data which developing countries don’t have the resources to gather. If these two things are done there is definitely potential for success. But considering the limited progress made over the last 15 years, this remains to be seen” (9/21).