Efficiency in Reaching the Millennium Development Goals. World Bank Working Paper.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) provide clear targets and areas of focus for international organizations such as the World Bank. At a conceptual level, to reduce poverty and hunger, to improve education and health indicators, and to promote gender equality and sustainable development, countries can either increase the resources they allocate to these objectives, or increase the efficiency with which they use their available resources. The four papers presented in this study deal with the second option: increasing the efficiency of countries, and of decentralized entities within countries, in producing good outcomes with their available resources. The first two papers "Measuring and Explaining Country Efficiency in Improving Health and Education Indicators" and "Measuring and Explaining the Impact of Productive Efficiency on Economic Development" use country-level data to analyze the efficiency of countries for improving health, education, and GDP outcomes. The last two papers "Reaching Health and Education Targets in Argentina: A Provincial-Level Analysis" and "Development Targets and Efficiency in Improving Education and Health Outcomes in Mexico's Southern States" use within-country data on health and education from Argentina and Mexico to look at the same issues. Together, the four papers suggest that apart from increasing inputs, it is necessary to improve efficiency to reach the MDGs. Includes 18 notes and an extensive number of tables, figures, and boxes. Each paper contains references. (BT)