Bunker Roy critiques the Millennium Development Goals

John Elkington

October 7, 2009

The Millennium Development Goals are misguided – and likely to be achieved only on paper – says Bunker Roy, founder of India’s Barefoot College and a member of the Volans Advisory Board. In his Opinion piece in The New York Times, he argues that:

“Any goal that is driven from the top by international donors and governments not accountable to the communities and without financial transparency is doomed to fail. That model encourages colossal falsification of figures, the excessive hiring of private consultants and contractors, conflicts of interest and a massive patronage system.

“When poor communities think at the human level, all their goals are interconnected. But under the present top-down model, with the absence of a global grass-roots movement with the communities as equal partners, the goals have been broken up compartmentally into project mode, to suit donors and governments.”

And that, he says, is a recipe for failure.