After 2015: What are the ingredients of an 'MDG-PLUS' agenda for poverty reduction?

The United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), for better or worse, have played a major role in focusing development policy since their original incarnation in the 1990s. Some development agencies have gone as far as to judge the value of all their activities on the contribution to achieving the MDGs. This paper asks how is the context for poverty reduction changing, what has been the impact of the MDG paradigm to date, and what, if anything should replace the MDGs in 2015 as a policy focus (or foci) or paradigm. The paper is based on the authors' own ideas and draws upon the presentations and background papers from the ‘After 2015’ panel held at the DSA 2008 conference. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.