The deadline for the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) is 31 December 2015. The concept will then be replaced by Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) for the next 15 years. The UN General Assembly is scheduled to meet this month to incorporate the SDG in its post-2015 agenda. Before the new framework is set in motion, it is time to evaluate what the MDG efforts have achieved.
The initiative was conceived with a plan, a budget, and a specific mapping of responsibilities. Although a major UN effort, no single individual or organization has been made responsible for achieving the MDGs. Instead, numerous public, private, philanthropic and nonprofit actors, working together and independently in developed and developing countries have been involved in the effort. Given such complexities, the achievements do seem impressive. Before the MDG was formulated, there was no common framework for promoting global development. The goals have brought the diffused international development community closer.
After the Cold War ended, many rich countries cut their foreign aid budgets to turn their focus on domestic priorities. The results were distressing. Africa suffered stagnation with rising poverty, child deaths and a drop in life expectancy. The economic crisis and the threat of growing inequality plagued Asia and Latin America. At the 2000 UN Millennium Summit, member-countries agreed on a set of measurable, time-barred targets in the Millennium Declaration.
In 2001, these targets were packaged in eight sets of MDG - to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; achieve universal primary education; promote gender equality and empower women; reduce child mortality; improve maternal health; combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; ensure environmental sustainability; and forge global partnerships among countries and actors to achieve development goals. Each objective was subdivided into specific targets. For example, the first goal involved cutting by half between 2001 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than $ 1.25 a day. At the Monterrey (Mexico) conference in March 2002, leaders set a benchmark for sharing the burden; they urged the developed countries to make concrete efforts towards the target of 0.7 per cent of gross national income (GNI) as official development assistance to developing countries. The 22 official OECD donor countries were contributing an average of 0.22 per cent of GNI to aid. Thus working towards a 0.7 per cent target implied tripling the total global support. The MDG represents the first global framework anchored in an explicit partnership between developed and developing countries.
The United States was initially hesitant to accept the MDG agenda. It had endorsed the UN Millennium Declaration and the Monterrey agreement but refused to support the MDG largely because it was seen as UN-dictated aid quotas. The subsequent dissent from other countries and pressure from the US media convinced Washington to modify its position. The US administration eventually endorsed the MDG publicly at the 2005 UN World Summit. Since 2003, the USA launched an emergency plan for AIDS relief. This has dramatically improved access to AIDS treatment in those countries of Africa that were committed to good governance. This programme was in many ways in line with the MDG effort but did not explicitly link to the goals.
In 2010, five years before the deadline, the world had already met the overarching objective of cutting extreme poverty by half. The population of the developing world living on less than $ 1.25 a day had dropped from 43 per cent in 1990 to roughly 21 per cent in 2010. The framework is not solely responsible for poverty reduction. Progress was already under way in China and other Asian countries long before the MDG was adopted. In China alone, the proportion of poor people came down from 60 per cent in 1990 to 12 per cent in 2010. In South Asia, it fell from 51 per cent to 28 per cent. Nevertheless, the MDG has kick-started progress where it was lacking as in Africa, which has experienced unprecedented economic growth and poverty-reduction. The MDG campaign has prompted support for small subsistence and cash-crop farms, and this has spurred growth in many low-income countries of Africa. Bangladesh has achieved the goal of having reduced poverty by half well ahead of the deadline.
The major success has been achieved in the sphere of health. The goals have prompted a huge increase in private sector and philanthropic assistance. Thanks to this global effort, malaria deaths have dropped by 25 per cent since 2000. Many pharmaceutical companies have manufactured medicines that are now more widely available in poor countries and new initiatives are coming up. In Senegal, child mortality has dropped by half, in Cambodia by 60 per cent. Rwanda has recorded an eight per cent average annual reduction in child mortality since 2000 - one of the fastest declines in history. Overall, despite the rapid global population growth, there has been a worldwide decline in the number of children dying before the age of five - specifically from 9.5 million in 2000 to 5.5 million in 2013.
No issue has been more closely interconnected with MDG than the HIV/AIDS treatment campaign. In 2000, nearly 30 million people were infected, the vast majority in Africa where over one million people were dying every year from the disease. At that time, large-scale AIDS treatment in Africa was deemed impossible. Spurred by the launch of MDG, the World Health Organisation introduced the “3 by 5” initiative in 2003. It envisaged the treatment of three million AIDS patients in Africa by 2005. By the end of that year, only 1.5 million people were being treated. The target could not be reached, but due to the interwoven AIDS- MDG campaign, the notion of service delivery targets has sunk in globally, and this has helped in the expansion of AIDS treatment. In 2013, more than eight million people were being treated worldwide.
The MDG has proved that with concentration and efforts, even the most persistent global problems can be tackled. The post-2015 goals should remain focused on eliminating the multiple dimensions of extreme poverty; it is also imperative to address the emerging challenges that include pressure on the environment, affecting the livelihood of millions, the growing number of middle-income countries with daunting internal poverty challenges, and the rapidly spreading non-communicable diseases. The wish-list for sustainable development for the next 15 years should, like the MDG, be restricted to eight to ten objectives.
The fresh goals also need to be matched with resources. Without the Monterrey agreements of 2002 and the financial commitments at the Gleneagles summit in 2005, the MDG might well have faded from the international agenda. According to one estimate, the G-8 ended up falling more than $ 10 billion short on its Africa pledges for 2010 alone. The post-2015 negotiations should get a clear picture of budgetary support by the contributing countries. But with austerity and slow growth across much of the rich world, aid budgets to developing and poor countries appear to be under threat.
Multilateral organizations, such as the World Bank and UN agencies should get more involved and identify benchmarks for post-2015 success. The world’s poorest should not be betrayed. There are still 1 billion people today who live on no more than $ 1.25 a day. Over the next 15 years, the world has a chance to eliminate extreme poverty.
www.samvegias.com
The initiative was conceived with a plan, a budget, and a specific mapping of responsibilities. Although a major UN effort, no single individual or organization has been made responsible for achieving the MDGs. Instead, numerous public, private, philanthropic and nonprofit actors, working together and independently in developed and developing countries have been involved in the effort. Given such complexities, the achievements do seem impressive. Before the MDG was formulated, there was no common framework for promoting global development. The goals have brought the diffused international development community closer.
After the Cold War ended, many rich countries cut their foreign aid budgets to turn their focus on domestic priorities. The results were distressing. Africa suffered stagnation with rising poverty, child deaths and a drop in life expectancy. The economic crisis and the threat of growing inequality plagued Asia and Latin America. At the 2000 UN Millennium Summit, member-countries agreed on a set of measurable, time-barred targets in the Millennium Declaration.
In 2001, these targets were packaged in eight sets of MDG - to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; achieve universal primary education; promote gender equality and empower women; reduce child mortality; improve maternal health; combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; ensure environmental sustainability; and forge global partnerships among countries and actors to achieve development goals. Each objective was subdivided into specific targets. For example, the first goal involved cutting by half between 2001 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than $ 1.25 a day. At the Monterrey (Mexico) conference in March 2002, leaders set a benchmark for sharing the burden; they urged the developed countries to make concrete efforts towards the target of 0.7 per cent of gross national income (GNI) as official development assistance to developing countries. The 22 official OECD donor countries were contributing an average of 0.22 per cent of GNI to aid. Thus working towards a 0.7 per cent target implied tripling the total global support. The MDG represents the first global framework anchored in an explicit partnership between developed and developing countries.
The United States was initially hesitant to accept the MDG agenda. It had endorsed the UN Millennium Declaration and the Monterrey agreement but refused to support the MDG largely because it was seen as UN-dictated aid quotas. The subsequent dissent from other countries and pressure from the US media convinced Washington to modify its position. The US administration eventually endorsed the MDG publicly at the 2005 UN World Summit. Since 2003, the USA launched an emergency plan for AIDS relief. This has dramatically improved access to AIDS treatment in those countries of Africa that were committed to good governance. This programme was in many ways in line with the MDG effort but did not explicitly link to the goals.
In 2010, five years before the deadline, the world had already met the overarching objective of cutting extreme poverty by half. The population of the developing world living on less than $ 1.25 a day had dropped from 43 per cent in 1990 to roughly 21 per cent in 2010. The framework is not solely responsible for poverty reduction. Progress was already under way in China and other Asian countries long before the MDG was adopted. In China alone, the proportion of poor people came down from 60 per cent in 1990 to 12 per cent in 2010. In South Asia, it fell from 51 per cent to 28 per cent. Nevertheless, the MDG has kick-started progress where it was lacking as in Africa, which has experienced unprecedented economic growth and poverty-reduction. The MDG campaign has prompted support for small subsistence and cash-crop farms, and this has spurred growth in many low-income countries of Africa. Bangladesh has achieved the goal of having reduced poverty by half well ahead of the deadline.
The major success has been achieved in the sphere of health. The goals have prompted a huge increase in private sector and philanthropic assistance. Thanks to this global effort, malaria deaths have dropped by 25 per cent since 2000. Many pharmaceutical companies have manufactured medicines that are now more widely available in poor countries and new initiatives are coming up. In Senegal, child mortality has dropped by half, in Cambodia by 60 per cent. Rwanda has recorded an eight per cent average annual reduction in child mortality since 2000 - one of the fastest declines in history. Overall, despite the rapid global population growth, there has been a worldwide decline in the number of children dying before the age of five - specifically from 9.5 million in 2000 to 5.5 million in 2013.
No issue has been more closely interconnected with MDG than the HIV/AIDS treatment campaign. In 2000, nearly 30 million people were infected, the vast majority in Africa where over one million people were dying every year from the disease. At that time, large-scale AIDS treatment in Africa was deemed impossible. Spurred by the launch of MDG, the World Health Organisation introduced the “3 by 5” initiative in 2003. It envisaged the treatment of three million AIDS patients in Africa by 2005. By the end of that year, only 1.5 million people were being treated. The target could not be reached, but due to the interwoven AIDS- MDG campaign, the notion of service delivery targets has sunk in globally, and this has helped in the expansion of AIDS treatment. In 2013, more than eight million people were being treated worldwide.
The MDG has proved that with concentration and efforts, even the most persistent global problems can be tackled. The post-2015 goals should remain focused on eliminating the multiple dimensions of extreme poverty; it is also imperative to address the emerging challenges that include pressure on the environment, affecting the livelihood of millions, the growing number of middle-income countries with daunting internal poverty challenges, and the rapidly spreading non-communicable diseases. The wish-list for sustainable development for the next 15 years should, like the MDG, be restricted to eight to ten objectives.
The fresh goals also need to be matched with resources. Without the Monterrey agreements of 2002 and the financial commitments at the Gleneagles summit in 2005, the MDG might well have faded from the international agenda. According to one estimate, the G-8 ended up falling more than $ 10 billion short on its Africa pledges for 2010 alone. The post-2015 negotiations should get a clear picture of budgetary support by the contributing countries. But with austerity and slow growth across much of the rich world, aid budgets to developing and poor countries appear to be under threat.
Multilateral organizations, such as the World Bank and UN agencies should get more involved and identify benchmarks for post-2015 success. The world’s poorest should not be betrayed. There are still 1 billion people today who live on no more than $ 1.25 a day. Over the next 15 years, the world has a chance to eliminate extreme poverty.
www.samvegias.com
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