PHOTO: Nasa "Blue Marble" via Wikicommons
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are eight international development objectives that were established by the UN member states in 2000. Ranging from cutting extreme poverty in half to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education, each has a target date of 2015. As that deadline is fast approaching, it’s time for us to take a look at how the world’s countries stepped up and followed through (or didn’t) on the goals laid out to meet the needs of the world’s poorest. We’ve assigned a grade of A through F; (for those not familiar with this grading system A=excellent, F=miserable failure) for each goal to give you an idea of where the world currently stands.
GOAL: Halve extreme poverty and hunger by 2015: A
The target of reducing extreme poverty rates by half was met an impressive five years ahead of the 2015 deadline. 700 million fewer people lived in conditions of extreme poverty in 2010 than in 1990. More good news is that the hunger target is on track to be met by 2015. However, it’s important to stay focused on the fact that 1.2 billion people around the world are still living in extreme poverty and 842 million people are undernourished.
Highlights
· Malawi: Through a national input subsidy program, the country achieved a 53% food surplus in 2007, from a 43% national food deficit in 2005.
· Vietnam: Investment in agriculture research and extension helped cut the prevalence of hunger by more than half, from 28% in 1991 to 13% in 2004-06. The prevalence of underweight children also more than halved from 45% in 1994 to 20% in 2006.
· Nicaragua: reduced its hunger rate by more than half, from 52% in 1991 to 21% in 2004-06.
GOAL: Achieve universal primary education: B
Enrolment in primary education in developing regions reached 90% in 2010, up from 82% in 1999, which means more kids than ever are attending primary school. The number of out-of-school children dropped by almost half from 102 million in 2000 to 57 million in 2011. The trickle-down effect of these gains is massive, as improvements in education have an impact on all MDGs. But the battle is far from over, with one in ten children of primary school age (roughly 58 million children) still out of school in 2012.
Highlights
· Kenya: by eliminating fees, the country was able to quickly get 2 million more pupils into its primary schools.
· In Ethiopia, the net enrolment rate for primary school was 72.3% in 2007, an increase of 88% since 2000.
· In Tanzania, the abolition of school fees in 2001 led to a net enrolment rate of 98% for primary schooling by 2006. This means enrollment rates have nearly doubled since 1999.
· Mongolia has been providing innovative mobile schools (“tent schools”) to cater to children in the countryside who may otherwise not have regular access to educational services. One hundred mobile schools have been spread out over 21 provinces.
GOAL: Promote gender equality and empower women: C
The importance of gender parity in education cannot be overstated. Fortunately, least on the level of primary schooling, we can proudly proclaim success. The world has achieved equality in primary education between girls and boys. Further, the political participation of women keeps increasing. By January 2014, in 46 countries more than 30% of members of at least one chamber of the national legislature were women.
But before we get too excited, gender inequality persists. Women continue to face discrimination in access to higher levels of education, work and economic assets, and participation in government (despite that progress I mentioned above). For example, in developing regions, women tend to hold less secure jobs than men, with fewer social benefits. And tragically, poverty and violence against women continue to undermine efforts to reach this-and all of these-goals.
Highlights
· Rwanda elected a majority of women (56%) to its lower chamber of parliament in 2008, the highest level of female representation of any country.
· In Bangladesh, where the gender parity index in primary education was very low (0.35) in the 1980s, the gender gap in primary and secondary education was closed within a decade.
· Tanzania’s Land Act and Village Land Act of 1999 secured women’s right to acquire title and registration of land, addressed issues of customary land rights, and upheld the principles of non-discrimination based on sex for land rights.
GOAL: Reduce child mortality: B
Despite population growth, the number of child deaths worldwide declined by roughly half in the last two decades, from 12.7 million to 6.3 million, which translates into about 17,000 fewer children dying each day. Since 2000, measles vaccines have averted over 14 million deaths. Despite these accomplishments, faster progress is needed to meet the goal of two-thirds reduction in under-five mortality. Amongst the poorest nations, only one third of them will hit this target. The most tragic part of the child mortality issue is that the majority of these deaths are caused by preventable or treatable causes, such as diarrhea, pneumonia, malnutrition, malaria, and tuberculosis. Notably, children of educated mothers—even mothers with only primary schooling—are more likely to survive than children of mothers with no education (see what I mean about the trickle-down effect?).
Highlights
· Rwanda is very likely to meet – and possibly even surpass – the MDG targets for reducing child and maternal mortality by 2015, in part thanks to the government’s successful health insurance program.
· Bangladesh, Bhutan, Bolivia, Eritrea, Laos, and Nepal: The under-five child mortality rate has been reduced by 50% or more since 1990.
· China: Since 1990, the under-five child mortality rate has declined from 46 deaths for every 1000 live births to 18 per 1000 in 2008, a reduction of 61%.
GOAL: Improve maternal health: C
The targets laid out by this Millennium Development Goal include a reduction by three quarters of the maternal mortality ratio and universal access to reproductive health by 2015. All regions have made progress on this, but it has not been a total home run. Overall, the mortality rate dropped by 45% between 1990 and 2013. Sub-Saharan Africa lags other developing regions, and here the risk of maternal death is 1 in 38.
Only half of women in developing regions receive the recommended amount of health care. Fewer teens are having children in most developing regions, but the large increase in contraceptive use in the 1990s was not matched in the 2000s. The booming demand for family planning services is simply outpacing the slow-building capacity. Globally, over 10% of all women do not have access to, or are not using, an effective method of contraception. It is estimated that satisfying the unmet need for family planning alone could cut the number of maternal deaths by almost a third.
Highlights
· Malawi and Rwanda: Removal of user fees for family planning services has contributed to significant increases in the use of family planning services.
· Rwanda: contraceptive prevalence among married women aged 15-49 jumped from 9% in 2005 to 26% in 2008.
· Malawi: The contraceptive prevalence rate among married women aged 15-49 has more than doubled since 1992 to 33% in 2004.
GOAL: Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria, and other diseases: A
The MDG target of halting and beginning to reverse the spread of HIV has been met! New HIV infections continue to decline in most regions. Between 2001 and 2012 the number of new HIV infections per 100 adults declined by 44%. Unfortunately, comprehensive knowledge of HIV transmission remains low among young people, along with condom use, contributing to the roughly 2.3 million cases of newly infected people each year.
Since the launching of this development goal, substantial expansion of malaria interventions has led to a 42% decline in malaria mortality rates globally. In the decade since 2000, 3.3 million deaths from malaria were averted,. Thanks to increased funding, more children are sleeping under insecticide-treated bed nets in sub-Saharan Africa.
To top it off, treatment for tuberculosis has saved some 22 million lives between 1995 and 2012.
Highlights
· Uganda: The adult HIV prevalence rate dropped from 8% in 2001 to 5.4% in 2007.
· Cambodia has managed to halt and reverse the spread of HIV, with the prevalence falling from 1.8% in 2001 to 0.8% in 2007.
· Botswana: The number of new HIV infections among children has declined five-fold, from 4,600 in 1999 to 890 in 2007.
· Eritrea, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Zambia, and Tanzania: Reductions of more than 50% in the numbers of reported malaria cases and deaths were observed in these high-risk African countries.
GOAL: Ensure environmental sustainability:B/C?
Over the last 26 years, there has been a reduction of over 98% in the consumption of ozone-depleting substances. Afforestation (a fancy way of saying planting new forests) and the natural expansion of forests have reduced the net loss of forest from an average of 8.3 million hectares annually in the 1990s to an average of 5.2 million hectares annually between 2000 and 2010. That’s about all the positive spin I can put on this. Forests are the safety net for the poor and they continue to disappear at an alarming rate. Global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) have also increased by more than 50% since 1990.
Thankfully, the water and sanitation picture is dramatically brighter. The world has met the target of halving the proportion of people without access to improved sources of water, five years ahead of schedule. Between 1990 and 2012, 2.3 billion people gained access to improved drinking water sources. But let’s also remember the 748 million people who remain without access to a safe source of drinking water and the 863 million people living in slums, an increase of over 100 million people since 2000.
Highlights
· Costa Rica: prevented the loss of 720 sq km of forests in biodiversity priority areas and avoided the emission of 11 million tons of carbon between 1999 and 2005..
· In Ghana: 80% of the rural population had access to an improved drinking water source by 2006, a 43% increase since 1990 levels.
· South Africa successfully achieved the MDG target of halving the proportion of people lacking access to safe water, as lack of access to improved drinking water was reduced from 19% in 1990 to 7% in 2006
GOAL: Global partnership for development:B
This MDG is kind of catch-all for a variety of development objectives. The primary goal is to establish an open trading and financial system that includes a commitment to good governance, development, and poverty reduction - nationally and internationally.
A good measure of this complex goal is the record high level of Official Development Assistance (ODA) generated in 2013: a substantial $134.8 billion. Also significant is the financial relief from a decreased debt burden on developing countries, driven by better debt management and increased trade.
A cool example of how encompassing this MDG actually is, is the commitment to making available new technologies, especially in information and communications. Two-thirds of the world’s Internet users are now in developing regions. The number of users in developing regions doubled between 2009 and 2014. In 2014, internet use penetration in developing countries grew by 8.7%, twice as fast as in the developed world. Though impressive, adoption still has room to run with more than 4 billion people still offline. Access to the internet has far-reaching implications and innumerable applications, allowing for inroads across all of the MDGs.
Highlights
· Denmark, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and UK: are the only countries to have reached or exceeded the target of official development assistance as 0.7% of Gross National Income.
· The UK legislation passage was a major win for Global Citizen, who campaigned heavily around with issue with the help of hundreds of Global Citizens and One Direction! Check out the impact here: One Direction for the UK Budget
· China, India, Iran and Uzbekistan succeeded in lowering private sector prices for generic medicines to less than twice the international reference price.
As the clock winds down on the Millennium Development Goals, it’s important to recognize the incredible, life-altering changes that have been made. It is also important to mark where more work needs to be done. Looking ahead, it’s clear that the opportunities that 2015 presents for bringing the people of the world together to decide and embark on new pathways forward are historic and unprecedented. These decisions will determine the global course of action to end extreme poverty, promote prosperity and well-being for all, as well as protect the environment and address climate change. The actions made in 2015 are expected to result in new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to follow the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and guide global development for the next 15 years. This is the world’s chance to decide what matters, what needs to change, and how many lives we want to save. It’s time for Global Citizens to speak up.
