HUMAN RIGHTS SHOULD BE THE HEART OF THE MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS

By Rowena McNaughton Reprint | | Print |

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LONDON, Aug 22 2010 (IPS) - Amid Millennium Development Goal (MDG) weariness, there is a call to up the ante.

An analysis of South African newspapers and television channels would suggest that coverage of the country is fated to be perpetually saturated with death and despair. This is not a new trend. The income disparity between the rich and the poor inspires ever greater feats of violence and dislocation.

In June 2010, just as the FIFA World Cup was being staged in South Africa, the country had overtaken tournament favourite Brazil as having the widest income disparity in the world. At the time it was reported that over 63 percent of black African children lived in households with a monthly income of less than Rand 800 (USD 110) as opposed to over Rand 6000 (USD 825) for 64 percent of white children. Since the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) were set ten years ago -with one of their aims to halve poverty- in South Africa, the number of vulnerable children has in fact increased twenty-fold, with some 7.1 million children under 14 years of age today living in poverty, according to the United Nations.

The background to this development is that while the income inequality is severe and worsening -in a frightening manner- in many other developing countries as well, equality is absent in the MDG targets, despite the fact that it is a human rights imperative, and a foundation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, In fact, most observers agree that while we may be on track to halve hunger, this achievement will be led by India and China, where inequality is on the increase.

Consistently and methodically, MDG spokespeople have stayed true to the message that MDGs are the best vehicle to execute change. After the release of the UN’s MDG progress report in July, which showed half of African countries “on track” to meet the target of halving poverty, Salil Shetty called for an end to the negative dialogue about MDG progress. As director, at the time, of the United Nations Millennium Campaign, Shetty said, “Instead of lamenting that Africa might miss the MDG targets, we should be celebrating the real changes that have happened in the lives of millions of poor people, not least because of the unified effort between governments and citizens, supported by donors.”

Similarly, the ex-UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, (who has herself just returned from a week-long trip to Sierra Leone), has lauded the fact that where there is commitment between governments and non-governmental organisations to reaching the MDG goals, real progress is possible. She notes that Sierra Leone’s “stunning” gains in maternal health are indicative of this relationship.

“As we approach the ten-year review of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals in September, we have an extraordinary model of leadership to look to in Sierra Leone of how such approaches can be implemented in practice,” she said. More countries must look to these.

While these statements are encouraging, they should not obscure another perennial question: If some progress is being made, why not more?

The MDGs were never that ambitious; they did not reach universal human rights standards. After all, Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, established no less than 62 years ago, states, “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family.” How can we talk of success when one billion people still go hungry daily and 8.8 million children under the age of five die needlessly each year?

Many in civil society are now using this argument to ramp up the agenda. When leaders discuss accelerating progress towards the MDGs at the UN summit in New York next month, civil society organisations such as Amnesty International and CIVICUS, supported by platforms such as Every Human Has Rights, will be pushing hard to get human rights included in the remaining five- year MDG agenda and planning how this holistic approach can feed into the post 2015 discourse.

Opening the debate about the merits of the MDGs may not be constructive right now, but this year, while we are talking about acceleration towards the goals, we can look at how human rights should and must play a part. Poverty must be recognised as one of the biggest violations of our Universal Rights, and an approach to poverty as described by Mary Robinson in Sierra Leone must be taken as an example of how to achieve real changes.

It is easier to be radical in goal-setting on the sidelines than when the game is play. It’s no secret that even hardened campaigners are weary of lofty goals and development workers groan as another MDG related report is due. Even UN Secretary-General Ban ki-moon has noted his reservations about achieving the goals by 2015. From Jakarta on 3 August, he singled out the insufficient progress on gender equality and the empowerment of women as a major flaw in MDG advances. But it is notable that these leaders are now talking categorically about targets, not just widespread ideals. Humanity is firmly on the global agenda. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

(*) Rowena McNaughton, CIVICUS Media Officer.