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Journal of Asia Pacific Studies ( 2010) Vol 1, No 2, 149-176
Revisiting the MDG’s: Exploring a
Multidimensional Framework for Human
Development
Nasir Khan, University of Auckland, New Zealand
Abstract: With a standardized set of goals, and targets set in rates,
proportions and percentages, an aggregated generalization marks the
Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s). Obscuring the real entitlementdeficits,
such an approach cloaks the multidimensionality of human
suffering by ignoring distributional inequity and interpersonal diversities.
The MDG’s, therefore, needs a revisiting within a broader informational
space like the one envisaged by the capabilities approach (CA) of Amartya
Sen. The paper develops a framework for such an assessment, evaluates
the outreach and effectiveness of the MDG’s within the framework, and
taking it as a paradigm, outlines an alternative global agenda for human
development in terms of CA.
Keywords: Capabilities approach, Millenium Development Goals,
Multidimensionality of human development, Distributional Equity
Introduction
At the turn of the decade, humanity’s greatest consensusthe
Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s) calls for a
revisiting from a global community increasingly ensnared by
financial crises, wars on terror and nuclear showdowns. The
MDG’s Review Report 2008 (MDG’s 2008) claimed that, “the
MDG’s are universal: they are intended to embrace not only
all countries but also all people within each country”, (p. 5).
A decade of functioning furnishes good ground to evaluate
how far it has been able to both pursue and achieve that
objective.
Unfortunately, the analyses carried out in the following lines
reveal that at least two deficiencies within the MDG’s
framework are reducing that claim from a long term agenda
for human development to a temporary relief operation. On
the one hand the aggregated generalization of the MDG’s is
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