Millennium Development Goals Slipping Away
Promises to Improve Living Standards Falling Short
Aug 13, 2009
There was an impressive display of diplomatic firepower on show in September, 2000 in New York City that included the heads of state and/or government from 191 nations. Just about everybody who mattered in politics and government was at this important United Nations meeting. They gathered at the start of a new century to launch a new attack on the old problems of global poverty and social decline.
Millennium Development Goals Agreed to
Out of the New York gathering of 2000 came the Millennium Declaration; an ambitious set of eight goals to make the world a better place:
- 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,
- Build a global partnership for development assistance.
Within those eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 18 specific targets were set and there was a timetable for reaching them.
2015 Target Date for Completion of Development Goals
Most of the goals were to be achieved by 2015. For example, the number of people living in extreme poverty (that is on less than $1 a day) was to be cut in half by 2015.
But, just wiping out poverty on its own is not enough. All the Millennium Development Goals are inter-connected and they reinforce each other. Failing to achieve one goal threatens success with the others. On the other hand, successfully completing one goal makes meeting the others a little easier.
Progress on Millennium Development Goals behind Schedule
In January 2005, The Economist reported that “Sub-Saharan Africa has met or is on track to meet not a single MDG.” And, that was long before the financial crisis kicked the legs out from under the program.
On July 9, 2009, the United Nations issued a progress report on the MDGs: “We have made important progress in this effort,” wrote UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, “and have many successes on which to build. But we have been moving too slowly to meet our goals. And today, we face a global economic crisis whose full repercussions have yet to be felt.”
While Mr. Ban tries to put an optimistic face on the issue and urges UN member states to honour their promises made in 2000, the situation on the ground is not pretty.
Third World Living Standards in Decline
Some progress was made in meeting the MDGs between 2000 and 2005 but that seems to have come to a halt.
The Millennium Development Goals Report 2009 lists some of the backsliding that has happened recently:
- “In 2009, an estimated 55 million to 90 million more people will be living in extreme poverty than anticipated before the [financial] crisis;
- “The encouraging trend in the eradication of hunger since the early 1990s was reversed in 2008, largely due to higher food prices. The prevalence of hunger in the developing regions is now on the rise, from 16 percent in 2006 to 17 percent in 2008;
- “Meagre progress on child nutrition from 1990 to 2007 is insufficient to meet the 2015 target, and will likely be eroded by higher food prices and economic turmoil; and,
- “The International Labour Organization estimates that global unemployment in 2009 could reach 6.1 to 7.0 percent for men and 6.5 to 7.4 percent for women, many of whom remain trapped in insecure - often unpaid - jobs.”
With the world's rich nations now mired in debt in attempts to put a spark back into their economies it seems highly improbable that they are also going to boost their development aid spending.
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