What should replace the Millennium Development Goals?

In 2013 the Global Learning Programme ran the Shape the Future competition for secondary schools, focused on the Millennium Development Goals and what young people think should replace them in 2015.

The response from young people and schools was excellent: the five finalists presented their ideas to the Secretary of State at the House of Commons.

The resources below are designed to support teachers who want to run the competition in their own schools in future, or just to use the activities and resources in regular lessons.

Task:

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were launched in 2000. Since then they have encouraged countries to work towards meeting the needs of the world’s poorest people. The target date for meeting the MDGs is 2015.

At the end of last century when the MDGs were agreed, the world looked quite different, so a new set of goals will be needed after 2015. There are different challenges which need new solutions. Perhaps an completely new way of looking at development will be needed.

In 2013 the Prime Minister, David Cameron, was Co-Chair of the United Nations Panel in charge of recommending new development goals. The aim is to really tackle the root causes of poverty – not just the symptoms – with new ideas for development. But what do young people in the UK think needs to be included?

Students work in a team. Discussyour own proposals for development goals after 2015 and make a presentation of your ideas. It is a chance for you to develop your understanding of development and to put across your vision for the future of the world, at the same time as showing your presentation skills.

Format:

Entries must take the form of a short presentation; students can use PowerPoint™ or make a movie.

  • The presentation should last no more than five minutes
  • PowerPoint™presentations should contain a maximum of 15 slides of content, not counting the title slide and any slides for section headings. The title slide must include the name of the school/team submitting the entry. The file must be no more than 5MB in size. It is generally the use of photos or animations that increases the file size, so you may need to think about how many are included and their resolution.
  • If their presentation contains images, students should make sure they have permission to use them, or images have a commons licence.

Criteria:

The criteria for judging the original presentations were:

  1. Knowledge of the current MDGs and the progress that has been made since 2000
  2. Explaining the challenges that should be incorporated into new global targets
  3. Using relevant evidence and research
  4. Showing critical thinking (questioning evidence, drawing on awide range of views, thinking laterally about the purpose of goals)
  5. A clearly communicated set of concise recommendations.

Students tackled criterion 2 least well, so you could leave this out.

Getting started

Suggestions for ways to tackle the task:

  1. Start with the goals
  • You could start with a whole-class stimulus about the MDGs and progress in development, perhaps using a video (e.g. from UNDP DfID, or University of East Anglia) or a poster (Oxfam) (NB some videos will need to be downloaded in advance from You Tube)
  • Get an overview of the goals; maybe map them (add data to a world map?); identify progress and which goals/where are stuck. The UNDP progress chart may help here: it traffic lights the goals and world regions
  • Share out the goals for students to find out more: how did the goals make a difference? The activities on the Oxfam site may help here, or some of the many detailed stories from the End Poverty site
  • Have a vote (or balloon debate) on the importance of each MDG. Is there anything the goals don’t include now, which would be a priority after 2015?
  • Create a persuasive case for what the goals might look like after 2015. Who for? How many goals? Where?
  1. How do the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) impact on my life?
  • Use My World 2015 (The UN Survey for a Better World) to help students decide what are the most important things that help them live a comfortable life. Are there any of the Millennium Development Goals that relate to these?
  • Discuss in groups which MDGs are likely to have most impact on students’ futures? (Use the Oxfam MDG “new for 2013 Progress Reports”. These could be discussed through debate and ranked in order of impact.
  • Choose the top two MDGs as chosen by the class and investigate the relative successes in different parts of the world.
  • What needs to happen in the future? Will these goals still be relevant? Why have some actions to try to reach the goals not worked? How could it be different for these issues after 2015?
  1. Get critical with the ‘experts inspire’ videos
  • Can you identify different perspectives?
  • Select a few follow-up questions to put to one or more experts.
  • What aspects do these views not cover? Who might provide these views?
  • What do we mean by uneven development?
  • Which countries are mentioned? Which are missing? Checking the UNDP progress chart may help here.
  1. Compare your work with other students’ ideas for the future
  • Watch the winning entry, from Year 9 students at Caroline Chisholm School. You could:
  • compare your ideas for future MDGs with theirs
  • use the criteria to decide why they won
  • in a group, view the other entries: did the judges get it right?
  • Students from 119 schools entered the competition in 2013: this resourceshows a summary of their ideas. You could:
  • compare your ideas for future development goals with theirs – then justify your own choices. Would you change any now?
  • look for links between different goals, for example ‘safe water supply’ could link with several others
  • be critical about some of the goals (but then suggest an alternative).

Other Resources

  • DfID summary of the competition, including progress on the MDGs
  • Simple PowerPoint™ presentation listing the 8 MDGs and targets
  • Youth voices video on the MDGs and what should follow them (You Tube)
  • A detailed case study of progress against the MDGs in Sierra Leone from Oxfam
  • Interactive review of progress towards the MDGs, with analysis – suitable for older students.

geography.org.uk/projects/globallearningprogramme