FAILURE TO ACHIEVE MDGS SHOULD MAKE US FIGHT ON

It is easy, at times also understandable, to assume that the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have been with us for so long that everyone knows about them. Yet not only do millions upon millions know little about them and the bearing they are meant to have on human development but also countries across the globe are finding them much harder to attain than originally thought.

The goals were adopted by world leaders in 2000, with the express aim of providing a framework for the international community to work together towards making sure that human development reaches everyone, everywhere. Here they are: eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality and empowering women, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health, combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, ensuring environmental sustainability, and developing a universal partnership for development.

The leaders who set the MDGs did so in the belief that attaining them would see world poverty cut by half, tens of millions of lives saved, and billions more people benefit from the global economy. Most observers admit that there has been some progress on some MDGs in many countries in the last decade, highlights including appreciable declines in poverty globally, considerable improvements in enrolment and gender parity in schools, decreases in child and maternal mortality and a boost in HIV treatments.

It is also noted that the share of poor people is declining while the absolute number of the poor in South Asia and in sub-Saharan Africa is increasing, rapid reductions in poverty are not necessarily addressing gender equality and environmental sustainability, and the expansion of health and education services is not being matched by quality.
Experts rightly note that the conspiracy of high food prices and the global financial and economic crisis every so often impedes efforts to achieve the MDGs. Climate change is also blamed for putting sustained poverty and hunger reduction at risk, mainly since agricultural production is usually susceptible to the vagaries of the weather.

Problems with transport and other infrastructure also combine to make various social services fail to meet demand. Three years ago, an Africa Steering Group conceived in September 2007 tabled proposals for action to achieve the MDGs and other internationally agreed development goals in Africa.
The Group is chaired by the United Nations Secretary General and brings together the leaders of several multilateral development organisations - AfDB, the African Union Commission, European Commission, International Monetary Fund, Islamic Development Bank Group, OECD and the World Bank Group.

The Group declared in June 2008 that it had no doubt whatsoever that, if fully translated into concrete action, its recommendations would take African countries closer to attaining the MDGs and lay the foundation for robust economic growth.
It expressed the hope that world leaders would take up the proposals and commit themselves to implementing them urgently as part of an ambitious but feasible development agenda. Like most other developing countries, Tanzania has found achieving the MDGs hugely challenging, but it is determined to do the most it can to emerge victorious. This is a plus that should inspire us into clear whatever hurdles lie on the path to success.