Wooing the MDG-skeptics

Despite the skepticism and questioning of many civil society groups about the millennium development goals (MDGs), Bharati Sadasivam argues that the conversation on the MDGs has the potential to be one of the most rewarding interactions between the UN and civil society, provided both sides rise to the challenge they pose to each other. Development (2005) 48, 30–34. doi:10.1057/palgrave.development.1100115

Discoursive Alibis: Human rights, millennium development goals and poverty reduction strategy papers

Susan Mathews examines the complex and largely unsettled relationship between the millennium development goals (MDGs), poverty reduction strategy papers (PRSPs) and human rights discourse, partly through analysing the proposal that PRSPs be aligned to MDGs. A major risk is that the MDGs and PRSPs aligned create an amalgam of policy formulae that bring together the goal stringency of the former and the macroeconomic and structural reform orthodoxy of the latter, which could seriously hamper poverty reduction and disempower low-income countries and its poor peoples. Development (2007) 50, 76–82. doi:10.1057/palgrave.development.1100362

Population Politics and Women's Health in a Free Market Economy

This article looks critically at the paradigm shift that so many claim occurred at Cairo. It summarizes the thinking of some of the key critical thinkers in the current debate on sexual and reproductive health and rights in the context of neo-liberalism. Development (2005) 48, 43–51. doi:10.1057/palgrave.development.1100192