Governance and the Millennium Development Goals: Exploring Education and Gender-Related Goals in Ethiopia

Abstract

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) consists of various aspects of human developments that have been pledged by 189 countries in the United Nations General Assembly in 1990. The MDGs has eight goals, eighteen targets and forty eight indicators to be achieved by 2015. Indeed, deadline is approaching. According to different reports, some countries have shown progress, but many countries in Sub Saharan Africa are lagging behind.  Scholars are now critically looking into the possible ‘missing pieces’ in those countries that are behind timetable in achieving the goals. In the same vein, the objective of this paper is to explore whether governance is one of missing pieces in countries lagging behind the schedule. To do so, we have selected Ethiopia as a case out of Sub Saharan countries due to information access to Ethiopia and Ethiopia is highly committed country to achieve MDGs, although lagging behind. We have specifically focused on MDG Goal 2 and 3 by interviewing different actors and reviewing literatures. The results indicate that Ethiopia has shown promising results in achieving MDG goal 2 and 3. However, in terms of governance, Ethiopian policy actors should rethink on multi-sectoral approaches in achieving these two goals, and tension between government and NGOs relation due to enactment of Charities and Societies Proclamation No. 621/2009. Further, quality of education is should be incorporated in MDG indicator post 2015 worldwide.

Keywords:  Millennium Development, MDG Goal 2 and 3, Education, Gender goal, Governance, Ethiopia