Revisiting the MDG’s: Exploring a Multidimensional Framework for Human Development

With a standardized set of goals, and targets set in rates,proportions and percentages, an aggregated generalization marks theMillennium Development Goals (MDG’s). Obscuring the real entitlementdeficits, such an approach cloaks the multidimensionality of human suffering by ignoring distributional inequity and interpersonal diversities. The MDG’s, therefore, needs a revisiting within a broader informational space like the one envisaged by the capabilities approach (CA) of Amartya Sen. The paper develops a framework for such an assessment, evaluates the outreach and effectiveness of the MDG’s within the framework, and taking it as a paradigm, outlines an alternative global agenda for humandevelopment in terms of CA.