Local vs Global targets and indicators
There are some strong arguments both for including global targets and indicators in the new global development framework and for avoiding them in favour of a 'global vision – local targets and indicators'-model. The following juxtaposition contrasting both stands is an excerpt taken from the first section 'Should goals, targets and indicators be global?' of the briefing paper "Addressing Conflict and Violence From 2015: A Vision of Goals, Targets and Indicators" published by Saferworld in February 2013. Apart from weighing the arguments for and against global targeting and evaluation, the paper focuses on the elaboration of potential targets, their subsumption under specifally peace-related goals within the wider post-2015 development framework and the propositon of indicators for their assessment.
The case for global goals, target and indicators
- Global targets and indicators can play an important role in fostering collaborative international action, informing and directing the flow of resources towards contexts and problems requiring attention. Without shared indicators, comparison and prioritisation would be reduced to guesswork.
- The existing MDG framework’s clarity and simplicity is the foundation for its high public profile. This has driven political commitment, attracted financial resources and concentrated efforts on the ground.3 In the same way the motivational power of the post-2015 framework will depend on whether it has clarity and simplicity. If each country or region had its own targets and indicators this would not result in a clear, global framework at all – severely limiting the new framework’s impact.
- Each country or region having its own targets and indicators would duplicate national development planning processes – multiplying the conversation at the expense of meaningful action.
- The purpose and focus of a global development framework is separate from that of national and local development planning. As a voluntary framework there is no need for it to function as a template that constricts or duplicates autonomous national analysis, consultation and decisionmaking. Even if global targets and indicators are adopted, each country will retain full autonomy to plan and sequence its own development process.
- The risks of global targets and indicators that are ill-fitting to context can be mitigated: firstly, by ensuring that they focus on genuinely universal key issues; secondly, by ensuring context specific baselines and benchmarks are used to project a realistic aspiration for progress at the national level.
The case for ‘global vision –local targets and indicators’
- Targets designed for one context may do harm if pursued in another – a point of particular concern from a peacebuilding perspective given that ‘what brings peace to most countries can bring conflict to some’.
- Setting global targets has the potential to be demotivating: in some countries targets might not be ambitious enough, so would not drive progress; in other cases, they might be too ambitious to be achievable.
- Each country or region having its own targets and indicators would duplicate national development planning processes – multiplying the conversation at the expense of meaningful action.
- Global targets and indicators are undesirable because decision-making powers should rest with the most local body that is competent to deal with a particular issue.
To read the complete briefing paper "Addressing Conflict and Violence From 2015: A Vision of Goals, Targets and Indicators" click here.
