In preparation of People's Health Assembly II - part 11
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No.2 on MDGs:
Who Would Gain most from Efforts to Reach the Millennium Devel-
opment Goals for Health?
An Inquiry into the Possibility of Progress that Fails to Reach
the Poor
By Davidson Gwatkin
Principal Health and Poverty Specialist
The World Bank, 2002
Available online as PDF file [44 pp. 4.6 MB] at:
http://poverty.worldbank.org/files/13920_gwatkin1202.pdf
"This paper is an inquiry into the possibility of progress to-
ward the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) targets for health
that does not significantly benefit the disadvantaged people
whom the MDGs are intended to serve. The possibility arises be-
cause the MDGs health targets, unlike most other prominent Mil-
lennium Development Goals MDGs targets, are stated in terms of
improvement in societal averages rather than in terms of gains
among poor groups within societies. Since improvements in any
group, including the better-off, would produce improvements in
societal averages, progress toward targets expressed in those
terms does not necessarily reflect improvements in conditions
among the poor.
Quantitative illustrations for typical countries in Latin Amer-
ica and the Caribbean, South and Southeast Asia, and Sub-Saharan
Africa indicate that the amount of benefit accruing to the poor
would vary greatly.
The implication is that special efforts will be required to en-
sure that health and development initiatives reach poor people
if they are to gain significantly from progress toward the Mil-
lennium Development Goals health targets.
Addressing multiple risks is an important step in addressing
health inequalities, many of which are partly related to the
clustering of major risks in specific socioeconomic groups."