First, rather than treating countries as finance-recipients, they need to be viewed as finance-generators. It is a common criticism of the MDG era that too much emphasis has been placed on aid. Instead, taxation and curbing illicit flows, present but largely forgotten in every major development financing document of the past 20 years, must finally be given precedence over foreign inflows of money.
Second, and even more profoundly, the whole "financing gap" calculating model, whereby a particular outcome is costed and possible contributions totted up, is past its sell-by date. It has been the basis of much of the quantitative analysis behind the MDG era, and is also the thinking behind the simplified NGO stats that x billion dollars will result in y lives saved. But it depoliticises finance, which is – and should be – very political.
Both themes emerged at a recent meeting in Johannesburg organised by the UN Millennium Campaign, where a group of African intellectuals and guests discussed how new development goals would be financed in Africa. The buzzwords were "structural transformation". Rather than seeking cash from others to achieve development results, a profound economic restructuring is required to finance change that is both sustainable and equitable.
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