Peer and Partner Review: A Practical Approach to Achieving the Millennium Development Goals

A number of strategies to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and associated cost estimates have recently been presented, most influentially by the Millennium Project and the World Bank. The models underlying the recommended strategies are flawed, as a result of their reliance on implausible and restrictive assumptions and poor quality data and their failure adequately to reflect uncertainties about the future. These weaknesses of technocratic predictive models can be mitigated but not overcome. An alternative approach to strategic planning should establish an institutional framework for continuous informed policy choice by representative decision-makers. The alternative approach to achieving the MDGs can be implemented through a process of periodic peer and partner review. The process of peer and partner review would enable each country to learn from its own experience and that of other countries, and thereby increases the likelihood of success of achieving the MDGs.