Figure 2. Ratio of indigenous to non-indigenous infant mortality rate, 200-
2002
Source: Christian Aid (2010).
Opportunities and challenges for the post-2015 successor to
the MDGs
There is a broad and growing consensus that inequality must be
central to the post- 2015 framework (and in development more
generally). At the moment, however, there are open questions about
how that happens, and whether there exist both the political will
and the resources to do so.
On the first of these, there are two main schools of thought. One
sees the ‘solution’ to this weakness in the MDG framework as being
achieved by adding an inequality goal; the other stresses the
importance of capturing the major inequalities within existing (and
any additional) goals. Both of these raise further questions, of
course.
A single income inequality indicator, especially if based on the Gini
coefficient or similar, would be controversial. More powerful, and
accurate as a reflection of in-country inequality, would be a ratio of
income among quintiles – potentially the top: bottom ratio and/or
the ratio of top quintile: bottom three quintiles. These would have
the further advantage of being relatively straightforwardly replicable
for regions and globally; and the idea of a development goal around
global inequality is certainly appealing. There would, of course, be
substantial resistance to more progressive proposals of this type.