Why Global Goals and Indicators Matter: The Experience of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in the Millennium Development Goals

Yamin, Alicia Ely; Boulanger, Vanessa

doi:10.1080/19452829.2014.896322

Cited by 30 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 27 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The inclusion of sexual and reproductive health rights in the HLP Report may reflect the success of a longer-standing advocacy campaign to mobilize support in first the MDGs and then SDGs. 11,12 This inclusion foreshadows how important social advocacy will be in fomenting political support for the right to health in global health policy arenas, an insight bolstered by the comparably greater inclusion of this right in reports with more civil society and academic participation.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…8 Indeed, the MDGs were criticized for being created in a non-deliberative, nontransparent, non-inclusive top-down process, 8,9 and for dropping targets with "a strong human rights orientationsuch as affordable water, fair trade, and support for orphans." 10 Sexual and reproductive health illustrates the potential impact of a disjuncture with rights: despite global recognition of these rights in the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development and the 1995 Beijing Platform of Action, conservative opposition saw women's health rights reduced to a maternal mortality goal in the MDGs, 11 with a formal reproductive health target only added in 2007 after a significant advocacy effort. 12 While the right to health is increasingly referenced in SDG debates, its usage varies and it is not always clear whether and how rhetorical references are related to proposed health goals.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Rights Language in the Sustainable Development Agenda: Has Right to Health Discourse and Norms Shaped Health Goals?

Forman¹,

Ooms²,

Brolan³

2015

Int J Health Policy Manag

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

While the right to health is increasingly referenced in Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) discussions, its contribution to global health and development remains subject to considerable debate. This hypothesis explores the potential influence of the right to health on the formulation of health goals in 4 major SDG reports. We analyse these reports through a social constructivist lens which views the use of rights rhetoric as an important indicator of the extent to which a norm is being adopted and/or internalized. Our analysis seeks to assess the influence of this language on goals chosen, and to consider accordingly the potential for rights discourse to promote more equitable global health policy in the future.

show abstract

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rights Language in the Sustainable Development Agenda: Has Right to Health Discourse and Norms Shaped Health Goals?

Forman¹,

Ooms²,

Brolan³

2015

Int J Health Policy Manag

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Following the normative concerns of the MDGs themselves, discourse on rights in the final text of the Global Strategy was secondary to that of a more managerial nature, presenting RMNCH largely as a technical issue that could be solved with through more financial resources, greater efficiencies, data, and targeted policy choices. 28 Successful technical consensus-building among stakeholders and the political championship of the Secretary-General, the G8, Bill Gates and others created a strong positive wave for the Global Strategy leading up to its September 2010 launch. Although the Strategy was developed outside of the usual UN intergovernmental channels, the document was given formal political backing through its inclusion in the official communiqué issued by UN member-states in relation to the high-level meeting on the MDGs.…”

Section: 28mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…41,42 This deliberate selection of rigorous evidence forms, echoing the dominant technical norms of the MDGs, [43][44][45] can be construed as a strategic response to gain visibility and attention for maternal and child health issues, even though the MDGs themselves have been criticised since their inception for insufficient attention to equity and redistributive justice required for transformative global change. 28,46,47 Reproductive health remains a cornerstone of the RMNCH "continuum of care" concept that fostered the creation of PMNCH in 2005 as a union of three separate partnerships on maternal health, newborn health, and child health. 48 However, brokers in the Global Strategy process -including representatives of the delicately balanced PMNCH board, representing a wide range of disparate interests -did not seek to emphasise issues, such as abortion rights and sexual education of young people, that could cause rifts among stakeholders and create delay in achieving consensus (personal observation).…”

Section: 28mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…With transnational advocacy networks creating greater links between global, regional, national and sub-national policy processes, 1 this study follows a small number of other studies 23,26 in using key concepts of the ACF to examine global political dynamics, including those influenced by the agendasetting power of the MDGs. 27,28 As such, this study seeks to fill a gap in global health governance literature on the agendasetting power of advocacy coalitions, particularly in relation to women's, children's and adolescents' health, which has attracted substantial attention and resources during the MDG era (2000-2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Power and Politics in the Global Health Landscape: Beliefs, Competition and Negotiation Among Global Advocacy Coalitions in the Policy-Making Process

McDougall¹

2016

Int J Health Policy Manag

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background: Advocacy coalitions play an increasingly prominent role within the global health landscape, linking actors and institutions to attract political attention and resources. This paper examines how coalitions negotiate among themselves and exercise hidden forms of power to produce policy on the basis of their beliefs and strategic interests. Methods: This paper examines the beliefs and behaviours of health advocacy coalitions using Sabatier's Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) as an informal theoretical lens. Coalitions are further explored in relation to the concept of transnational advocacy networks (Keck and Sikkink) and of productive power (Shiffman). The ACF focuses on explaining how policy change takes place when there is conflict concerning goals and technical approaches among different actors. This study uses participant observation methods, self-reported survey results and semistructured qualitative interviews to trace how a major policy project of the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) era, the Global Strategy for Women's and Children's Health, was constructed through negotiations among maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH) and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) advocacy coalitions. Results:The Global Strategy represented a new opportunity for high-level political attention. Despite differing policy beliefs, MNCH and SRHR actors collaborated to produce this strategy because of anticipated gains in political attention. While core beliefs did not shift fundamentally and collaboration was primarily a short-term tactical response to a time-bound opportunity, MNCH actors began to focus more on human rights perspectives and SRHR actors adopted greater use of quantifiable indicators and economic argumentation. This shift emphasises the inherent importance of SRHR to maternal and child health survival. Conclusion: As opportunities arise, coalitions respond based on principles and policy beliefs, as well as to perceptions of advantage. Global health policy-making is an arena of contested interests, power and ideas, shaped by the interaction of coalitions. Although policy-making is often seen as a process that should be guided by evidence rather than interest-based politics, this study concludes that a participatory process of debate among different actorcoalitions is vital to progress and can lend greater legitimacy, accountability and transparency to the policy process. Implications for policy makers • The increase of global resources for reproductive, maternal, newborn, and child health (RMNCH) is a result of intensified coordination of actors in the effort to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). • Understanding how transnational policy coalitions think, compete and negotiate with each other is vital to understanding how they have come to wield increasing influence in global health at a time of declining state dominance. • Global-level policy-making is legitimated and made more accountable by the participation of multi-constituency actor coalitions, including coal...

show abstract

Success factors of global goal‐setting for sustainable development: Learning from the Millennium Development Goals

Hickmann

Biermann

Spinazzola

et al. 2022

Sustainable Development

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were an important precursor to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Hence, identifying the conditions that made the MDGs successful enhances our understanding of global goal-setting and informs the global endeavour to achieve the SDGs. Drawing on a comprehensive review of 316 articles published between 2009 and 2018, we identify six factors that have enabled or hindered MDG implementation. Our analysis stresses the importance of path dependencies and shows that the MDGs catalysed changes only for those countries with sufficient resource availability, administrative capacity and economic development, as well as adequate support from external donors. National ownership and NGO pressure bolstered efforts to implement the MDGs. These findings suggest that globally agreed goals do not easily trickle down from the global to the national level. Thus, this article adopts a forward-looking perspective and draws key lessons for the current implementation of the SDGs in developing countries.

show abstract

Why Global Goals and Indicators Matter: The Experience of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights in the Millennium Development Goals

Cited by 30 publications

References 27 publications

Rights Language in the Sustainable Development Agenda: Has Right to Health Discourse and Norms Shaped Health Goals?

Rights Language in the Sustainable Development Agenda: Has Right to Health Discourse and Norms Shaped Health Goals?

Power and Politics in the Global Health Landscape: Beliefs, Competition and Negotiation Among Global Advocacy Coalitions in the Policy-Making Process

Success factors of global goal‐setting for sustainable development: Learning from the Millennium Development Goals

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About