MDGs-2 MORE YEAR'S TO 2015!

The millennium development goals are series of eight time-bound development goals that seek to address issues of poverty, education, equality, health and the environment, to be achieved by the year 2015. They were agreed by the International community at the United Nations Millennium Summit, held in New York in September 2000. To address these challenges, all member countries of the United Nations signed the Millennium Declaration in September 2000, which laid out quantified, targeted goals-the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – to halve extreme poverty in its many forms by 2015. In January 2005, the UN Millennium Project, commissioned by the UN Secretary General, recommended an action plan detailing what needs to be done and how to achieve the MDGs. The report identified practical strategies to eradicate poverty by scaling up investments in infrastructure and human capital while promoting gender equality and environmental sustainability.

Between 1990 and 2001, the number of people in sub Saharan Africa living on less than $1 a day rose from 227 million to 313 million with one-third of the population below the minimum level of nourishment and many countries including Nigeria crippled by disease, drought and poor infrastructure.

The MDGs were developed out of the eight chapters of the Millennium Declaration, signed in September 2000. There are eight goals with 21 targets and a series of measurable indicators for each target (Press release 2004)

DEBATE SURROUNDING THE MDGS

CRITICISM: Drawbacks of the MDGs include the lack of analytical power and justification behind the chosen objectives. The MDGs leave out important ideals, such as the lack of strong objectives and indicators for equality, which is considered by many scholars to be a major flaw of the MDGs due to the disparities of progress towards poverty reduction between groups within nations. The MDGs also lack a focus on local participation and empowerment (excluding women’s empowerment) (Deneulin & Shahani 2009). The MDGs also lack an emphasis on sustainability, making their future after 2015 questionable. Thus, while the MDGs are a tool for tracking progress toward basic poverty reduction and provide a very basic policy road map to achieving these goals, they do not capture all elements needed to achieve the ideals set out in the Millennium Declaration.

Researchers also point out some important gaps in the MDGs. For example, agriculture was not specifically mentioned in the MDGs even though a major portion of world's poor are rural farmers. Again, MDG 2 focuses on primary education and emphasizes on enrollment and completion. In some countries, it has led to increase in primary education enrollment at the expense of learning achievement level. In some cases, it has also negatively affected secondary and post-secondary educations, which have important implication on economic growth.

Another criticism of the MDGs is the difficulty or lack of measurements for some of the goals. Amir Attaran, an Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Law, Population Health, and Global Development Policy at University of Ottawa, argues that goals related to maternal mortality, malaria, and tuberculosis are in practice impossible to measure and that current UN estimates do not have scientific validity or are missing (Diled 2003). Household surveys are often used by the UN organizations to estimate data for the health MDGs. These surveys have been argued to be poor measurements of the data they are trying to collect, and many different organizations have redundant surveys, which waste limited resources. Furthermore, countries with the highest levels of maternal mortality, malaria, and tuberculosis often have the least amount of reliable data collections. Attaran argues that without accurate measures of past and current data for the health related MDGs, it is impossible to determine if progress has been made toward the goals, leaving the MDGs as little more than a rhetorical call to arms.

ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT OF MDGS : Proponents for the MDGs argue that while some goals are difficult to measure, that there is still validity in setting goals as they provide a political and operational framework to achieving the goals. They also assert that non-health related MDGs are often well measured, and it is wrong to assume that all MDGs are doomed to fail due to lack of data (Clayton B.2003). It is further argued that for difficult to measure goals, best practices have been identified and their implication is measurable as well as their positive effects on progress. With an increase in the quantity and quality of healthcare systems in developing countries, more data will be collected, as well as more progress made. Lastly the MDGs bring attention to measurements of wellbeing beyond income, and this attention alone helps bring funding to achieving these goals.

The MDGs are also argued to help the human development by providing a measurement of human development that is not based solely on income, prioritizing interventions, establishing obtainable objectives with operationalized measurements of progress (though the data needed to measure progress is difficult to obtain), and increasing the developed world’s involvement in worldwide poverty reduction. The measurement of human development in the MDGs goes beyond income, and even just basic health and education, to include gender and reproductive rights, environmental sustainability, and spread of technology. Prioritizing interventions helps developing countries with limited resources make decisions about where to allocate their resources through which public policies. The MDGs also strengthen the commitment of developed countries to helping developing countries, and encourage the flow of aid and information sharing.

Conclusion

Our generation has the unprecedented opportunity to end extreme poverty throughout the world by 2025. Achieving the Millennium development goals by 2015 will be a crucial step along the way. However this requires a holistic approach through demand responsiveness and participatory planning. Our support towards these laudable and achievable targets will solve our quest for a more peaceful and prosperous world. It will be a worthwhile legacy for our children to inherit a poverty free world where there is adequate provision of social infrastructures.