Africa and the Millennium Development Goals
Blog af Shanta Devarajan
Verdensbankens cheføkonom for Afrika
lagt på bankens website 30. marts 2010
At a recent DFID (britisk) conference on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs = 2015 Målene), I argued that Africa can meet the MDGs, if not by 2015 then soon thereafter. Here is why:
1. Although most African countries are off-track on most of the MDGs, Africa has, since the mid-1990s, arguably been making the greatest progress towards the goals.
2. Africa’s progress in the MDGs since the mid-1990s was due to economic growth and improved service delivery.
3. While Africa was probably hardest-hit by the global economic crisis, the response of African policymakers helped to dampen the impact, and set the stage for the continent to benefit from a global recovery.
Let me elaborate:
1. Although most African countries are off-track on most of the MDGs, Africa has, since the mid-1990s, arguably been making the greatest progress towards the goals.
The poverty rate has been declining at about one percentage point a year. There is some evidence that child mortality in Africa, after stagnating for some time, is beginning to fall sharply. Countries such as Rwanda, Ethiopia, Gambia and Malawi have seen declines of 25-40 percent in under-five mortality in the last decade. And in primary completion, if you take 1999 as the starting point, the fastest progress has been in Africa and South Asia.
While this has to do with the fact that these two regions had the lowest levels of primary completion, it is still significant that, unlike previous periods, the growth rate in Africa is the highest.
Læs videre på http://blogs.worldbank.org/africacan/node/1855
