Millennium Development Goals Report 2008

The UN’s recently-released Millennium Development Goals Report 2008 describes the progress made by the world towards meeting the 8 development goals. It also lists some issues, though yet to be achieved, which are expected to be implemented by 2015.

In the original MDG Declaration, the international community pledged to “spare no effort to free our fellow men, women and children from the abject and dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty.” Eight development goals were adopted to address this, and other issues, in more than 190 countries in ten regions.  Targeted issues include 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 fostering a global partnership for development.

This year the UN decided to conduct a report on progress made in these goals. It concluded that “significant progress towards achieving the eight goals, but we are not on track to meeting our commitments.”

Principal areas of progress

The UN asserts that reducing poverty, and specifically, halving the developing world’s proportion of population living on less than $1 a day by 2015, can still be achieved. Success will be largely due to "extraordinary economic progress in much of Asia," according to the report. “(Since 2002) one of the factors that has contributed to the growth of many developing countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa but also in West Asia and Latin America, has been a rise in commodity prices, such as oil.”

The goal of reducing the number of people suffering from hunger also included good news. “In East Asia, particularly China, the percentage of underweight children was reduced to less than 50% between 1990 and 2005.” However, not everything has been remedied because, despite progress, “this region is home to more than half the world's malnourished children.”

Efforts to end the high infant mortality rates have yielded some progress, however. “The number of deaths involving children under five remains unacceptably high.” Especially in some regions, for example, “East Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean, where infant mortality rates are roughly four times higher than those in developed regions.”

Women’s presence in the workplace has increased in most regions, contributing to progress on the goal of achieving gender equality. However, the main exceptions are North and West Asia, where less than 25% of women of working age are employed. The report attributed these figures to the fact that “women are kept out of the workforce by no choice of their own… There would be more women in these regions that would choose to work if it were socially acceptable, if more jobs were created for women and if there were institutions that help to combine work and family responsibilities.”

Also, “women are slowly gaining ground in the areas of political decision, but progress is erratic and marked by regional differences.” Though women occupy about 30% of the seats in Parliament in 20 countries, they could be better off in Asia.  On the other hand, Latin American and the Caribbean women's representation increased, reaching 22% of all available seats.

Access to drinking water

One of the most important advances has been in the area of access to potable water. The good news came from East, Southeast and South Asia, which has met or exceeded the target proposed for 2015.

“In East Asia… more than 400 million people have gained access to improved drinking water sources and coverage… (this represents an increase of) 20% since 1990.” In this area the goal was to provide 84% of the population with safe drinking water by 2015. This has already exceeded expectations due to East Asia’s achieving 88% coverage.

Moreover, Southeast Asia is one percentage point away from meeting its goal. It was expected that 87% of its population would have clean drinking water by 2015. It now provides 86% of its population with clean drinking water, which 2015 goal very feasible, if not probable.  In South Asia, the goal was to ensure that 87% of the population had clean drinking water. The figure was reached and the region will exceed this figure by 2015.

Nevertheless, and despite efforts to achieve universal access to this valuable resource, “nearly one billion people lack access to safe drinking water. (Especially) in Sub-Saharan Africa, where one-third of the population lacks a safe drinking water supply and there is a need to push strongly to meet the goal.”