Professor Elaine Unterhalter explains why equity should be paramount when drawing up future international development goals.

1. The benefits of interdisciplinary dialogue: case studies from the MDGs Elaine Unterhalter Institute of Education University of London

2. Translations: Talking across Disciplinary boundaries The jargon of theory and practice The best and worst cases Indicator ‘fits’ and data gaps ‘What about gender?’

3. Found in Translation Aspects of inequity The complex relationships of ownership The salience of gender

4. Inequity as a cross-cutting problem Meeting the target: crossing the line of minimal levels of provision – $1 a day; enrolment; presence of a skilled birth attendant Reducing proportions or addressing rights for all? Measuring wealth quintiles – but inequitable relations in multiple sites (relevant to all sectors) become invisible Obscuring heterogeneities

5. Thinking about ownership as a cross disciplinary project Multiple sites, but the significance of states, planning, and negotiations with the MDG Framework Learning histories Recognising some similarities of implementation- systems, location, donor agendas, the puzzle of global obligation

6. Positioning gender All the MDGs are concerned with gender Specific women’s rights concerns The debate about global obligation