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Poverty, disease, women鈥檚 rights 鈥� we have to tackle then all, says the economist who helped draw up the Millennium Development Goals

The tackle a range of issues from poverty and disease to agriculture and women鈥檚 rights. Why do we have to tackle all these problems at once?

Poverty is multidimensional 鈥� it involves hunger, disease and all the other things, and because of that the goals are synergistic. Every target benefits when other goals are achieved. To get children into school in poor villages, you not only need to build the schools and train the teachers, but also make sure the children are healthy and well fed enough to go to school.

Development experts are always telling me that the essence of the MDGs is education, or nutrition, or energy鈥� Everyone is sure that their area underpins every other sector. But it鈥檚 really a network: if you lose any node you lose something at all the others.

You have described the Millennium Villages project, which aims to implement the MDGs at 14 sites across Africa, as science-based. What role does science play?

The project involves working with communities to design systems that will deliver the MDGs. Then we document the work, so we can take things to other communities. The interventions are research-driven: anti-malarial drugs, mobile phone apps for health workers, agroforestry techniques, for example. It鈥檚 all meant to scale up, and we will test this soon in Nigeria. The government there is about to launch a project that will bring the tools and interventions developed at Nigeria鈥檚 two Millennium Villages to 20 million people.

What was the mood at last week鈥檚 summit to review the MDGs: did you get the feeling that rich countries will now honour their financial pledges?

Not really. It鈥檚 a difficult period politically for North America and Europe. The notion of mutual help and targeted public investment that was once mainstream is now highly contentious. There鈥檚 a libertarian streak, in the US especially, where people say, 鈥淏uddy, if you鈥檙e in trouble it鈥檚 your fault; don鈥檛 come to me for help.鈥� So it鈥檚 not a shock when donors fail on every major commitment and give half what they promised.

Are the goals over-optimistic?

They will not be achieved at the current rate of development, but they are not technically impossible or unwisely ambitious. Many low-income countries will require a major increase in effort to achieve them, but it will be worthwhile.

How does population growth figure in this?

I see villages with huge latent demand for family planning. But although they don鈥檛 say it, African leaders are nervous about the Catholic church, which has a lot of power in many countries. Still, awareness will increase, especially as women enter the political process, as they are in Rwanda. And last week the US, UK and Australia for the 100 million women in Africa and south Asia who want it but can鈥檛 get it. Let鈥檚 see how the funding works out.