After G8, why the rich world must keep its pledges: The UNs targets will not be met without more aid, debt relief and fairer trade rules
Whatever triumphs for the developing world are hailed at the G8 in July, a heavy reckoning faces the world in September, when the UN meets to review progress towards such crucial targets as poverty, ill-health, education and clean water, writes The Guardian of London Tuesday according to The Push Journal.
Five years after the eight Millennium Development Goals and 18 targets were set, and 10 years before their deadline, the progress has been slow. This year, with Africa and development in focus as never before, there are those who feel the UNs credibility is at stake.
The figures are shocking:
– The numbers in extreme poverty, living on less than one dollar (6 DKR) a day, rose from 271 million in 1996 to 313 million in 2002
– Only 62 per cent of children go to primary school
– 920 women die for every 100.000 who give birth
– More than 50.000 children under five die every year, mostly of preventable diseases such as diarrhoea
– 2,3 million people died of Aids in 2004 and 25,4 million are HIV-positive
The millennium goals concern real, concrete change, and they are measurable.
The latest progress report in January shows there is a long way to go, and that in sub-Saharan Africa some things are getting worse.
While there was dramatic improvement in Asia in reducing extreme poverty between 1990 and 2001, as some economies took off and a quarter of a billion people moved out of extreme poverty (defined as living on less than one dollar a day), in sub-Saharan Africa the average income declined in the 1990s.
Growing numbers do not have paid work, agriculture has stagnated and HIV/Aids has taken a severe toll of those in their most productive working years.
While 9 million fewer people across the developing world went hungry in 2002, compared with 1990, in sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia the numbers without enough food rose by tens of millions because of growing populations and poor harvests.
Aid organisations agree that the targets are likely to be missed unless something dramatic happens. Anna Taylor, head of basic services at Save the Children Fund, said the one target pinned to this year – eliminating gender disparity in education so girls as well as boys get at least basic schooling – had not been met.
– That is not a good start. Some of the others (targets) are wildly off track, particularly the health goals. Others are patchy. In some parts of the world there is progress, but in others, and notably Africa, they are off track, she said.
Even where school fees have been abolished, girls may not attend because of the cost of books and uniforms. Many more fail to stay the course.
Three of the targets are specifically concerned with health, but health underlies many of the others, particularly because of the HIV/Aids epidemic that claims so many nurses, doctors, teachers and farmers, and leaves families in greater poverty because of the loss of breadwinners.
The target for reducing child mortality was to cut deaths of under-fives by two-thirds, while the target for improving maternal health was to reduce the death toll among women in pregnancy and childbirth by three-quarters.
Almost half of all the child deaths under five occur in sub-Saharan Africa, where, says the report, “progress has slowed owing to weak health systems, conflicts and Aids”.
Kilde: The Push Journal
