Beyond the Midpoint: Achieving the Millennium Development Goals is UNDP’s forward-looking review of the factors that shape MDG progress, along with the constraints and bottlenecks that have hampered MDG achievement in many countries. The findings build on MDG assessments in 30 countries that were undertaken for this review.

Highlights

• While there has been notable progress on many targets and indicators across countries, it is clear that much more needs to be done for MDG achievements to be realized by 2015.
• Progress has been most successful in countries where economic growth has been broadly distributed and where national ownership of the MDG agenda is strong, especially within civil society
• Four key factors shape progress at the country level: 1. Policy choices and programme coherence, 2. Governance and capacity deficits, 3. Fiscal space constraints and aid effectiveness, 4. National ownership: political will and partnerships
• Policies and interventions targeted for the rural sector and generating employment for the poor have been shown to be particularly effective at promoting inclusive growth.
• Effective democratic governance underpins MDG achievements because it addresses how the goals can be translated into outcomes.
• More effective decentralization and highly capacitated state institutions can also lead to increased efficiency of MDG service delivery.