By: Dr. Eric Lagally

As the UN holds its Millennium Development Goals (MDG) Summit in New York this week, many are reflecting on the impact of the MDGs and the progress toward accomplishing them.  The MDGs have been a focus for many development groups over the past decade or so, and they have had a demonstrable impact on alleviating global suffering.  The MDGs are of course not without controversy.  Some argue that the MDGs are inconsistent with the goals of other longstanding development efforts, such as the human rights movement.  Other groups, like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, have gone beyond the MDGs, looking not only to reduce the incidence of disease, but to eradicate diseases like malaria entirely. Where then are we to derive meaning from the MDGs, and how can they serve our efforts in the final five years of their tenure?

I think perhaps the lasting impact that the MDGs can have on development work and the eradication of neglected diseases comes in the framework of “engineering good”.  As a professional engineer, I ascribe a certain meaning to the term “engineering”.  For me, this means designing a particular solution to a particular problem, defined in a particular context.  The MDGs represent a list of the ongoing challenges in the developing world, and this list highlights the sad history of many preventable or treatable diseases, which together kill millions of people every year.  The MDGs have also set metrics for success, another useful concept also found in engineering.  This not only allows comparison of progress against the goal, but also encourages discussion and debate about the goals, as well as what comes next.  We are seeing some of that debate now.

But, perhaps the best thing to emerge from the MDG tenure thus far has been the bold yet implicit assertion that these problems are solvable.  As an engineer, I often look at problems this way, but social problems are a different animal entirely.  Many have given up hope of reaching sustainable solutions to problems like neglected tropical diseases, thus I think progress is slow.  The history of malaria gives an interesting perspective on this.  Regardless of whether we achieve any of the MDGs, they will have laid the framework for an important concept:  the amount of good in the world is not conserved.  We can all create good.  And when we do, we make progress toward solving problems much larger than ourselves.

And herein lies the biggest problem I have with the MDGs:  not enough people know about them.  To engineer good at the rate we need to so that we can accomplish all of the MDGs eventually, let alone by 2015, we will need everyone with firing neurons participating.  And right now, the MDGs are buried in obscurity outside of the development community.  An informal survey among my friends and colleagues across North America, Australia, Europe, and Asia indicates that perhaps 20% of people can name one or more of the MDGs.  My list includes professors across many disciplines, engineers, doctors, lawyers, and teachers.  If the MDGs are about creating good, in the way that most people understand what good is, then the effort should be far more widespread than it is.  This should be an easy conviction in the court of public opinion, yet most of my contemporaries don’t even know court is in session.

So, my prescription for the next five years goes something like this:  we have demonstrated significant progress on many of the MDGs, and will meet many of the goals we have set.  Yet, we won’t meet them all given the current push.  We need more help, from people all over the world.  The MDGs should be #1 on Twitter.  They should be on the tip of every student’s tongue.  Let us shout the following from the rooftops:  These goals are achievable, they are noble, and they will improve our world.  Let us all work together toward engineering good.

Eric Lagally has a Ph.D. in Bioengineering from the joint UC, Berkeley – UC-San Francisco Bioengineering Graduate Group.  His expertise is in the engineering of microfluidic systems for clinical diagnostics, particularly molecular methods for disease detection.  His website, Global Health Technologies, compiles and analyzes advances in global health technology and its implementation.