The Millennium Development Goals: helping or harming minorities?

This brief assesses the impact of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on minority groups. The brief argues that current strategies towards achieving the MDGs could increase existing inequalities and may harm some minority communities that are amongst the poorest of the poor.

The brief finds that:

• globally minorities – which are among the poorest of the poor - should gain from progress towards the goals, yet are in fact being left behind as the particular causes of their poverty and low human development, such as discrimination, are little understood or inadequately addressed
• there is a genuine risk that the strategies used to achieve the MDGs will be less beneficial for minority groups, might increase inequalities and may harm some minority communities
• a few country reports on the MDGs reveal some innovations vis-à-vis minorities, but most country reports do not mention minorities at all
• greater effort is needed to ensure that minorities benefit fairly from the international commitment to meet the MDGs
• the MDGs can be met more effectively by ensuring that the needs and rights of minorities are respected through strategies that reflect their uniquely vulnerable and marginalized status within many societies.

The brief suggests a number of ways how the MDGs can be better geared to the needs of miniorities. For each of the MDGs a minority-specific analysis can help to improve development interventions:

• reduction in hunger should take account of the links between food production and cultural identity for many minority groups
• education programmes should be reformed to address discrimination and make curricula more relevant to minority cultures if universal primary education is to be achieved
• gender disparities in access to education will not be eradicated if the specific barriers faced by minority girls are not addressed
• inequalities in health and mortality rates exhibited in minority communities can only be overcome if discrimination in health care service provision is tackled and health care providers are more sensitive to the impact of cultural differences
• environmental sustainability needs to engage those communities whose identities and livelihoods are linked to the environment.