Poor people must have a say in the poverty reduction process

They have been an important yardstick for measuring progress towards reducing poverty levels over the past dozen years. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are due to finish in 2015 but how much have they achieved? And what other poverty reduction goals will take their place when the deadline runs out?

Members of a high level panel set up by the UN to begin work on designing a replacement for the MDG’s are meeting with British Prime Minister David Cameron and other government officials in London this week. The Catholic development agency CAFOD is among those at the forefront of a campaign calling for a strong replacement framework for poverty reduction goals after 2015. Vatican Radio’s Susy Hodges spoke to Dr Amy Pollard, CAFOD’s lead analyst on post 2015 development goals.

Listen to the extended interview with Amy Pollard:

Asked how she would rate the success of the MDG's in reducing poverty, Pollard said it's been a success but a patchy one. "It's been an uneven process ... but overall a really positive trajectory with all of the goals showing significant progress." She says: "It's for this reason that we want to see a really strong and legitimate successor to the MDG's."

Looking ahead to week's meeting of the high level panel appointed by the UN to set up a replacement framework for the MDG's, Pollard describes it as a "really important meeting" and says the number one job is to decide "what is the rationale of the new framework."

Asked why poverty levels are so intractable in many countries, Pollard says CAFOD feels there are many "structural causes to poverty" which mean that "poor people are not competing on a level playing field." She also says CAFOD sees as a key priority when drawing up the post 2015 poverty reduction goals that "poor people themselves have a say in the process."