Michael Woolcock, Lead Social Development Specialist at the World Bank and Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard University, opens this panel debate with a note of cautious optimism on the prospects for the UN Post-2015 Development Agenda, arguing that, “as aspirational statements for the international community to strive to fulfil over the period 2000-2015, and as a way of trying to educate the world as a whole as to the aims of the development community, they have been a broad success”.

Masooda Bano from the University of Oxford Department for International Development charts the shifts in onus from state to non-state actors in aid delivery over recent decades, emphasizing the importance of long-term projects that are fully embedded within the local community. 

The final presentation comes from Samuel Clark, a DPhil Student at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies and consultant to the World Bank, who presents his research into corruption and law enforcement in Indonesia as a case study through which to test whether an MDG approach is appropriate in tackling such issues.