It was a global compact aimed at saving the world: high-minded targets that would lift millions out of poverty for the new millennium. But as world leaders gather at a summit in New York tomorrow, figures suggest the chances of meeting any of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) by the target date of 2015 are remote.Read the rest of The Independent on Sunday article here.
The targets, set in 2005 – on poverty, education, women's rights, child mortality, maternal health, the spread of HIV, the environment and aid – were always ambitious.
Thanks to the global recession, and complacency from many of the 189 countries that signed up, the interim targets that were set are in many instances still far from being met, which means that progress may slip by as much as a decade.
Progress has been even slower for women, who continue to bear the brunt of poverty and its far-reaching effects, according to new research by Plan International and Africa Progress Panel. Girls are still much more likely to die before the age of five than boys – largely from preventable diseases such as malaria and TB. According to Plan, the MDG tracking system ignores the plight of girls, so the particular impact of poverty on them goes unrecorded.
Many rich nations that pledged aid are reneging on their promises, with a knock-on effect on the other seven targets. Overall donations in 2010 are estimated at $108bn, a shortfall of $18bn against commitments made in 2005.
Comment: It saddens me to say that I am yet to come across a serious development researcher/academic or practitioner who thinks the UN Millennium Goals are anything more than a hopeful wish list unbalanced by the usual brutal game of selfish capitalist accumulation.
The poor and impoverished have no real friends in 2010 or beyond. To say that "We can end poverty by 2015" was never realistic inside or beyond the UN.
Onward!
3 comments:
The mortality rate of women and children is really frightening.
The Minister of IR & Co-operation was interviewed two days ago on SA FM two mornings ago. She was basically "reporting on the report" (that she would be presenting at the UN MDG 2010 Summit) compiled by who knows who based on data collected from who knows where.
She didn't seem to grasp the concerns of many of the callers about land redistribution, RDP houses without toilets, unemployed rates, rising crime levels, corruption, the list goes on and on as you well know.
For all these valid points people made, she had one response:"Eh, you see this is not a platform on which to address these matters. The UN has asked that each country submit a report and that's what we are doing. We were the first African country to host the world cup."
What?
I can just see it now. The Armani suits draped over amoeba-like morbidly obese bodies, coma-inducing; recycled speeches by semi- comatose politicians, analysts scurrying around adjusting their tripple lense spectacles trying to get funding for their hypothetical books, Tokyo Sexwale posing for that million-dollar shot with Obama, and on and on it goes. Window- dressing.
The state- system is a fake.
Thanks kindly for your comment Nolwazi.
You know the bureaucratic disease well.
I'm always struck how the ruling elite are always not at the right forum or platform to address anything of substance.
Except of course the ishshoes as they obscure them.
Peace,
ridwan
So true, there's never a right time to admit just how much you suck face as a government or the UN.
L8R
:/
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