An increasing number of countries are orientating their development strategies based on the millennium
development goals (MDG), a broad set of directives agreed to by the United Nations (UN) in the year
2000. Developing coherent plans to achieve MDG has been complicated by their multidisciplinary
nature, and by the complexity of the system being managed. The ‘‘system’’ here is the socio-economic
construct within which populations live and operate. In an effort to support this planning process,
various approaches have been developed to help realize MDG within specified budgets. The work
described here complements the most commonly used approaches by analyzing the impact of alternative
interventions in an integrated socio-economic-environmental framework. In doing so, we utilize system
dynamics, which is well-suited to support the analysis of dynamic, complex issues such as those that
characterize MDG planning. Such an approach allows us to estimate impacts of MDG-related interventions
on the economic and demographic development of countries under study, as well as the possible
synergies between and amongst selected interventions, e.g., those involving education and health.
Results indicate that failure to account for such factors can lead to sub-optimal strategies. Our objective is
thus to provide policy-makers with a more comprehensive view of the outcomes generated by alternative
MDG interventions, with emphasis on the ability to finance given strategies.