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DEVELOPMENT: Halfway to MDGs, Little to Brag About

Haider Rizvi

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 27 2006 (IPS) - Despite making numerous promises over the past six years, the majority of governments have failed to take action on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), U.N. officials said here Monday.

“We are still a long way from where we need to be,” outgoing Secretary-General Kofi Annan told the U.N. General Assembly. “We have laid a foundation for development, but no more than that.”

The MDGs include a 50 percent reduction in extreme poverty and hunger; universal primary education; reduction of child mortality by two-thirds; cutbacks in maternal mortality by three-quarters; the promotion of gender equality; and the reversal of the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria and other deadly diseases, all by 2015.

No region in the world is currently on track to meet all of these goals, Annan and others said, noting that the progress made so far is either partial or confined to one region.

While East Asian countries have shown substantial progress in poverty reduction, there is no sign of a qualitative change in South Asia. Similarly, Latin America has shown some solid results, but only in certain areas.

According to the United Nations, more than one billion people worldwide live on less than a dollar a day. Another 2.7 billion struggle to survive on less than two dollars a day, while 11 million children die each year from completely preventable causes like malaria, diarrhea and pneumonia.

U.N. development experts seem most worried about the situation in sub-Saharan Africa, where they see no indication of any progress on any of the goals.

Achieving the MDGs in sub-Saharan Africa remains a much “bigger problem” than in other regions of the world, said Kemal Dervis, who runs the U.N. Development Programme.

Dervis said that despite substantial economic growth in recent years, disparities within and between countries continue to rise.

Since the outset of the industrial revolution, he said, the top 10 richest countries of the world have become 50 times more prosperous than the 10 at the bottom.

Annan criticised wealthy countries for failing to fulfill their pledges on funding for the MDGs, but added that developing nations must also live up to their own commitments.

“Development will simply not happen if the developing world doesn’t get its own house in order,” he said.

Many developed countries have pledged to allocate 0.7 percent of their GDP to finance development in poor countries, but only a few of them have actually matched their words with deeds.

Though the current levels of official development assistance (ODA) from the developed world remain insufficient to meet all the MDGs, U.N. officials stressed some positive trends.

“We may not have made poverty history, but we are making progress,” said Haya Rashed Al Khalifa, the General Assembly president, noting that last year, ODA had reached 100 billion dollars for the first time.

Recently, donor countries agreed to deliver an additional 50 billion dollars in aid, with 25 billion to Africa, by 2010, while they already canceled some of the debt of 20 poorest nations, amounting to about 81 billion dollars.

On Monday, the Islamic Development Bank announced it was ready to set up a poverty alleviation fund with initial capital of 10 billion dollars.

The Islamic Bank, which operates in 54 countries, will start its funding for poverty reduction, girls’ education, health, HIV/AIDS and other MDG-focused projects in Africa, the Middle East, Asia and former Soviet nations in Central Asia.

“The fund will provide financing on highly concessional terms focusing primarily on 25 least developed member countries of the IsDB in Africa and Asia,” said Dr Amadou Boubacar Cisse, vice president of the Bank’s operations.

The fund is part of the Islamic countries’ apparent resolve to take their own initiatives on financing for development, instead of heavily relying on sources from the outside world.

Last December, the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) held a summit in Saudi Arabia, where its leaders approved the idea of setting up the fund.

In addition to the Islamic Bank, there are other heavy hitters in the private sector who appear serious about strengthening global efforts to implement the U.N. agenda on development.

According to U.N. officials, among other emerging and new donors, they include such well-known names as George Soros of the Soros Foundation and Hisham Alwugayan of the Kuwait Fund for Economic Development.

Describing the role of the private sector as “crucial” in achieving the MDGs, Khalifa said that over the past decade, civil society organisations have become important global players in development.

In addition to governments, their partnership for development is essential, she added, stating, “When the poverty is so immediate and suffering so intense, the world has a moral and strategic obligation to address the concerns of the poorest and most vulnerable.”