As the Millennium Development Goals’ (MDGs) 15-year deadline to eradicate poverty will miss the target, a new report by the 27 eminent citizens of the world has set a new deadline – 2030 – to end extreme poverty. The new report has set up the target of reducing poverty through sustainable development.

“This report sets out a clear roadmap for eradicating extreme poverty by 2030. We need a new global partnership, to finish the job on the current Millennium Development Goals, tackle the underlying causes of poverty and champion sustainable development,” said British prime minister David Cameron, who is also member of the panel established by the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

The report plans to work on the progress made in terms of the MDGs – which had set eight targets to develop a better world by 2015. Prominent economist Abhijit Banerjee is also member of the panel.

The report titled ‘A New Global Partnership: Eradicate Poverty and Transform Economies through Sustainable Development’, said in its 81-page report that no one should be left behind. “After 2015, we should move from reducing to ending extreme poverty, in all its forms. We should ensure that no person – regardless of ethnicity, gender, geography, disability, race or other status – is denied basic economic opportunities and human rights,” said the report.

It said that the 1.2 billion poorest people account for only 1 percent of world consumption while the billion richest consume 72 percent.

“This report sets out a new vision for a world equipped to tackle the hurdles to human development and to capitalise on new opportunities. We hope that it will prove a valuable input into the global conversation on the post-2015 development agenda and that the principles and shifts we identify will help to frame the ongoing dialogue,” said Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, co-chair of the panel.

Disappointed with the report, Wada Na Todo Abhiyan (WNTA), a New Delhi-based organisation working on MDGs, said the panel report fails to correct the picture. WNTA said the report has little actionable details to address key concerns such as ending income inequalities, universal healthcare and sanitation, and ways to finance development.

“It (the report) has been able to strike a balance between the old and new demands. It does talk of human rights, though it could have been more explicit and also about the socially excluded…even peace and accountable governance,” says Amitabh Behar, Global Co-Chair – Global Call to Action against Poverty, an international NGO.

“My only worries are around financing, on which it has been silent (about responsibilities) and almost says that it has to be domestic resource mobilisation,” Behar adds.

Thomas Chandy, CEO, Save the Children,  says, “Even though the Indian government has, on numerous occasions, underlined its support for the MDGs over any new post-2015 framework, it’s not clear how it plans to integrate key elements present in the HLP report that are missing from the MDG framework, especially with regard to inequality, sustainability, accountability and conflict.”

“It is now up to the Indian government to drive this agenda forward and avoid subordinating the central ideas to a narrow skewed economic growth agenda that excludes the interests of the vast majority of the population,” he adds.

The panel interacted with more than 5,000 civil society groups from 121 countries in developing its recommendations. The eminent persons submitted its report to the UN in crafting the development agenda to succeed the MDGs following the 2015 deadline for their achievement. The Secretary-General is expected to present his own vision for the world’s next development agenda to UN member states in September 2013.

Read the report.