“They’re a bit like me, aren’t they?”

I have a wonderful younger sister who, while awesome in many ways, is not blessed with good time management skills. Every Sunday evening (and tonight is no exception!), you’ll find her beneath a stack of books cramming for school.

Tonight, we’ve been discussing the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). (Aren’t I a cool sister? J) I explain that they were started in 2000 to be achieved by 2015. I mention the UN summit that took place last week to measure global progress in reaching the MDGs and that the prospects of success are bleek.

“They’re a bit like me, aren’t they?”

Like my 17 year old sister with her art portfolio, the global community seems content to leave international development to the last minute.

In this post, I’d like to provide a snapshot of our world in relation to the 8 MDGs. What have been our successes and failures?  All statistics come from the World Bank, the UN or Irish Aid. This is not intended as an exhaustive overview, just a snapshot of a few key points.

Millennium Development Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.
To halve the proportion of people whose income is less than $1.25 a day. To halve the proportion of people who suffer from hunger.

The Reality:

The UN established a new poverty line at $1.25 per day. In Sub-Saharan Africa, extreme poverty went from 53% in 1981 to 51% in 2005. (A tiny 2% drop in 20 years.)

1 billion people are hungry right now. This has been rising for the past 15 years, but worryingly over the past 5 years, it has increased at a faster rate.

Poverty is multi-dimensional and evolves over time. Generally, poverty is caused by systemic failures in agriculture, development, trade, economics, governance or health. There is no easy solution to a complex problem.

Millennium Development Goal 2: To achieve universal primary education.

The Reality:

Enrollment rates in Africa have increase from 43% in 1960 to 95% in 2006. Enrollment figures can be misleading as many children are forced to repeat early grades due to high absenteeism and poor quality of teaching.

72 million children remain ‘out of school’ worldwide, and 55% of them are girls.

Early marriage, pregnancy, working in the home, socio-cultural norms and gender-based violence prevent girls from attending school.

The quality of education has not kept pace with increase access. Millions of children graduate from school without basic literacy and numeracy skills.

About 10.3 million additional primary teachers will be required to achieve MDG2.

Millennium Development Goal 3: Promote Gender Equality and Empower women.

The Reality:

Of the 1.3 billion people living in poverty around the world, 70% are women. Women work 2/3 of the world’s working hours, produce over half of the world’s food yet earn only 10% of the world’s income and own less than 1% of the world’s property.

In the Least Developed Countries, nearly twice as many women as men over 15 years of age are illiterate.

Women predominate in the informal economy and subsistence farming and shoulder a heavy burden of unpaid care work. In sub-Saharan Africa, 64% of women’s employment remains in small-scale agriculture.

The global chare of women in parliament continues to increase slowly. It increased to 19% in 2010 from 11% in 1995.  It is far short of the 30% target that was to be met by 1995, and further still from the MDG target of gender parity by 2015.

Millennium Development Goal 4: Reduce Child Mortality.

The Reality:

For the first time in documented history annual childhood deaths have dropped below 9 million. They now stand at 8.8 million.

In Africa, a child dies from malaria every 45 seconds. It accounts for 20% of all childhood deaths. Malaria can decrease gross domestic product by as much as 1.3% in countries with high disease rates.

6 million child deaths each year could be saved with simple interventions such as immunization, treated malaria bed nets, breast feeding, skilled attendance at birth, hand washing and better basic nutrition.

Millennium Development Goal 5: Improve maternal health.

The Reality:

Over half the global maternal mortality occurs in six countries. They are India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Democratic Republic of Congo.

Only 42% of pregnant women in Sub-Saharan Africa receive the recommended minimum of 4 antenatal care visits and this has changed little over the past ten years.

HIV is estimated to cause about 25% of all maternal deaths.

Unsafe abortion, living in remote, rural areas and a lack of access to contraception have been linked with maternal health complications.

Teenage pregnancy is rising, with adolescents especially vulnerable to maternal complications and mortality.

Millennium Development Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and other diseases.

The Reality:

Two-thirds of those living with HIV are in sub Saharan Africa. 60% of these are women. Gender inequalities continue to impact women’s decision making and increase their vulnerability to HIV infection.

Prevention efforts are not keeping pace with treatments efforts. For every 2 people starting treatment, 5 new people are infected.

In 2008, 45% of HIV-infected pregnant women received antiretroviral drugs to prevent HIV transmission to their newborns, compared with just 9% in 2004.

Millennium Development Goal 7: Ensure Environmental Sustainability.

The Reality:

From 1990 to 2006, 1.1 billion people in the developing world gained access to toilets, latrines and other forms of improved sanitation.

Climate Changes is seriously undermining progress on the MDGs. It affects water scarcity, food insecurity, reduced agricultural productivity, floods, the loss of low lying lands and islands, desertification and the spread of vector bourne diseases.

87% of the world has a better source of drinking water compared with 77% in 1990.

Millennium Development Goal 8: Develop a Global Partnership for Development. (Address the special needs of the least developed countries (LDCs), landlocked countries and small island developing states. Develop further open, rule based, non-discriminatory trading and financial systems. Deal comprehensively with developing countries debt. In cooperation with pharmaceutical companies, provide access to affordable essential drugs in developing countries. In cooperation with the prvate sector, make available benefits of new technologies, especially information and technology.)

The Reality:

Just 5 countries have reached the UN target of 0.7% of G.N.I. (Gross National Income) to be given in ODA (overseas development aid). They are Denmark, Luxembourg, Holland, Norway and Sweden. Net bi-lateral aid to sub-Saharan Africa has risen by 300% over the past decade.

Failure to reach agreement in the Doha round of multilateral trade negotiations has deprived developing countries of the benefits of a fair system of trade.

A total of $117 billion in debt owed by Least Developed Countries has been cancelled.

A word of statistics:
Debate continues over the value and accuracy of statistics like the ones I have used above. Of 53 African countries, 40 have not undertaken a representative national survey of poverty and income more recently than 2003. Inadequate population statistics make it difficult to effectively monitor progress.

In conclusion, based on current performance, the MDG targets will not be met until well into the next century. Failure to make progress in one MDG impedes the success of the other 7, as all 8 are designed to be interdependent measures of success. From my analysis, it seems that rapid progress on hunger and gender inequality are needed to jumpstart development across all 8 goals.