As the 15-year Millennium Development Goals approach their conclusion, we can now measure their larger successes and failures in more than ‘snapshot’ fashion; and we can begin to consider how best to shape the international development agenda for the coming decades based on what we have learned. But the performance and outlook for the MDGs can neither be reduced to the sum of its eight goals, nor be divorced from international dynamics - the hard interests of states and other actors, and the global dynamics that impact on both. For that reason, this volume balances contextual analysis, the role of formative and constraining forces, the importance of normative considerations and illuminating case studies to deliver a study of the MDGs which has depth and nuance as well as breadth. Poised between judging the recent performance and the future promise of the MDGs, this book is substantial, provocative and timely.

This book was published as a special issue of Third World Quarterly.