Learning from the Health Scale Up under the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
The health sector has mounted the most coordinated, sophisticated, and ultimately successful campaigns and partnerships to pursue the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). As part of a global partnership without central coordination, global and national organizations collaborated in pursuit of the goals. This paper identifies five components of this global partnership: (i) shared goals and metrics, (ii) back-castings and policy standards, (iii) international funding mechanisms and national implementation, (iv) evidence-based advocacy, and (v) a strong evidence base, monitoring & evaluation, and technology development. Other priorities under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), such as education, smallholder farming, and access to basic infrastructure lack similar partnerships and organization. The paper proposes how, drawing on the experiences of the health sector, these sectors can strengthen their organization in pursuit of the SDGs. Just as happened in global health in the early 2000s, private philanthropy and development funders can help close implementation gaps that inhibit faster progress towards the SDGs.
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