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.
