1990s brought a sharp reversal in these gains. A similar trajectory was seen in Botswana
when enrolment fell from a high level over the 1990s because of the HIV/AIDS crisis
(Clemens (2004)).
Sustainability problems come in a slightly different guise in countries which have seen rapid
rises in enrolment, but with significant deteriorations in quality as measured by the ratio of
teachers to pupils, exam performance and repetition rates (see World Bank (2002) for
evidence on Uganda; World Bank (2003) on Rwanda). Here, though, if enrolment outcomes
are adjusted for quality, it may be that many of these countries have not made significant
gains. But increasing enrolment through lowering quality may still raise issues of
sustainability in our meaning of the term if declining quality reduces the private returns to
education thereby choking off demand for schooling.
Standard benchmarking approaches, which take little account of interactions between
variables and therefore the underlying drivers of progress, fail to address the requirement of
sustainability. These methods, being anchored in the MDGs’ 2015 timeframe, use the
criterion of point controllability. They would therefore give little warning of future reversals
of the kinds discussed.
5. Structural transformation and “qualitative” policy design
So far analysis has been in terms of a “quantitative” policy problem: we have considered the
relationships between instruments and targets while assuming that the underlying structure
of the economy stays constant. But point (10) is important in developing countries where
policy is typically aimed at changing deep structural parameters of the economy. Qualitative
or structural policy focuses not on the values of target variables but on the relationship
between variables (Eggertsson (1997)). It seeks to induce new relationships between existing
instruments and targets and to activate new policy levers. These changes then require a
revised quantitative policy because the evolving system needs to be managed on the basis of
new parameters.
This distinction is relevant for developing countries seeking to reach the MDGs.
Development is a process of structural transformation; following the Washington Consensus
there is greater understanding of the broad range of structural changes needed for
successful economic performance including at the level of markets, and in economic and
political institutions (Stiglitz (1998)). So although the MDGs’ set of fixed targets seems to
point towards a qualitative policy problem, their achievement also requires attention to the
qualitative aspects of policy. As economies move towards the MDG targets, structural shifts
generate an ever-changing quantitative policy problem as new instruments and relationships
come into play. This is related to the problem of sequencing discussed in section three: an
evolving set of instruments may need to follow a certain time path if some are prerequisites
for others.
To give some examples from the MDGs, gender empowerment may alter the functioning of
labour markets, leading to shifts in the labour supply function as more women are able to
work. This could lead to new relationships between growth, employment and poverty