Counting what we know; Knowing what to count: Sexual and reproductive rights, maternal health, and millennium development goal 5

Purpose: Illustrate how the choice of goals and indicators in the MDGs had consequences for the development priorities of the international community and how MMRs have played a broader role in shaping global development agendas by influencing how priorities were defined, resources allocated, incentive policies formulated, and narratives created. Conclusions have implications for targets and indicators selected for a post-2015 agenda. Data: We conducted a review of funding streams, programming, and organizational structures as result of the MDGs. Methods: We analyze the consequences of the MDGs with particular focus on MDG 5. We examine the choices made leading up to the MDGs, the empirical and normative effects of the MDG agenda, and take a critical lens to measures of progress with respect to MMRs and SBAs. Results: While it is necessary to systematically assess progress on maternal health, it was inappropriate for the MDGs to become national planning targets and we argue that in the case of MDG 5, this elision was exacerbated by the indicator chosen. We explain why MMRs are inappropriate indicators to measure progress from a human rights perspective and the empirical and normative effects of having chosen MMRs to measure progress on SRHR. Recommendations:Criteria derived from human rights principles should be applied to the selection of indicators for comprehensively measuring advancement of SRHR in future development frameworks. Understanding how MDG 5 has had an enormous effect on funding, programming, and normative discourse around SRH is important in the context of framing a future development agenda.