ABSTRACT
The year 2007 marked the midpoint between 2000, when the MDGs were announced, and 2015, the date by which they are to be achieved. Unfortunately not all countries are even halfway towards achieving the targets prescribed. It is now widely recognized that adequate fiscal space is a necessary, if not sufficient, requirement to reach these goals. The UNDP, therefore, commissioned a series of country studies to obtain a more contextualized understanding of what limits countries’ ability to expand their fiscal space. This chapter reviews four country studies: Morocco, Senegal, Thailand and Venezuela. The scope of this review goes beyond fiscal space issues per se to consider the possible design and configuration of the goals themselves, so as to conform more closely to the ultimate objective, which is to reduce the incidence of deprivation in the world.
