MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS T0 BE ACHIEVED BY 2015 Halve extreme poverty and hunger 1.2 billion people still live on less than US$1 a day. But 43 countries, with more than 60 percent of the world’s people, have already met or are on track to meet the goal of cutting hunger in half by 2015.  Achieve universal primary education  113 million children do not attend school, but this goal is within reach; India, for example, should have 95 percent of its children in school by 2005. Empower women and promote equality between women and men  Two-thirds of the world’s illiterates are women, and 80 percent of its refugees are women and children. Since the 1997 Microcredit Summit, progress has been made reaching and empowering nearly 19 million poor women in 2000 alone.  Reduce under-five mortality by two-thirds  11 million young children die every year; but that number is down from 15 million in 1980. Reduce maternal mortality by three-quarters  In the developing world, the risk of dying in childbirth is one in 48. But virtually all countries now have safe motherhood programmes and are poised for progress. Reverse the spread of killer diseases, especially HIV/AIDS and malaria  Diseases that have erased a generation of development gains. Countries like Brazil, Senegal, Thailand and Uganda have shown that we can stop HIV in its tracks. Ensure environmental sustainability  More than one billion people still lack access to safe drinking water-but nearly one billion gained access to safe water, and one billion gained access to sanitation, during the 1990s. Create a global partnership for development, with targets for aid, trade and debt relief Too many developing countries are spending more on debt service than on social services. New aid commitments made in the first half of 2002 alone, though, will reach an additional $12 billion per year by 2006.

 

In September 2000, at the United Nations Millennium Summit, world leaders agreed to a set of time-bound and measurable goals and targets for combating poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation and discrimination against women. Placed at the heart of the global agenda they are now called the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The Summit’s Millennium Declaration also outlined a consensus road map for how to proceed, with a stronger focus on human rights, good governance and democracy.

At the International Conference on Financing for Development at Monterrey, Mexico earlier this year, leaders from both developed and developing countries started to match these commitments with resources and action, signalling a global deal in which sustained political and economic reform by developing countries will be matched by direct support from the developed world in the form of aid, trade, debt relief and investment.

The MDGs provide a framework for the entire UN system to work coherently together toward a common end. Partnered with the rest of the UN Development Group (UNDG), UNDP’s global development network is at the centre of those efforts. On the ground in virtually every developing country, UNDP is uniquely positioned to advocate for change, connect countries to knowledge and resources, and help coordinate broader UN efforts at the country level.

The world is making progress toward the MDGs?but it is uneven and too slow. A large majority of nations will reach the MDGs only if they get substantial support?advocacy, expertise and resources?from outside. The challenges for the global community, in both the developed and developing world, are to mobilize financial support and political will, re-engage governments, re-orient development priorities and policies, build capacity and reach out to partners in civil society and the private sector.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan asked UNDP Administrator Mark Malloch Brown, as Chair of the UNDG, to coordinate the MDG campaign and country level monitoring activities. For UNDP, this means working on four key dimensions:

Practical assistance in support of country priorities: Working through the UNDG, UNDP is helping to integrate the MDGs into all aspects of the UN system’s work at the country level, in response to the priorities identified by each country. UNDP’s own staff, working closely with those of other UN agencies, and a steadily expanding circle of partners are supporting developing nations with practical advice and assistance to design policies and programmes, build capacity and test innovations, as these countries map out their own paths to reach the goals.

Our own focus is helping countries build and share solutions to the challenges of Poverty Reduction; Democratic Governance; Crisis Prevention and Recovery; Energy and Environment; Information and Communications Technology and HIV/AIDS.

Monitoring: UNDP is working with the rest of the UN system, the OECD/DAC and in many cases the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, to support MDG Reports for every developing country. These Reports, which are in a growing number of cases the product of collaboration between a country’s government, the private sector and civil society, highlight where countries are on track to meet the Goals, where urgent efforts are needed, and how money is being spent. Nine MDG Reports have been completed, about 40 should be ready by the end of 2002 and nearly every developing country should produce its first by the end of 2004. These country-level Reports will complement and provide inputs for the UN Secretary General’s global Millennium Declaration reports, the first of which will be released in September 2002.

Research leader: UNDP is setting-up the United Nations’ Millennium Research Project, which will generate new research and ideas by mobilizing networks of scholars from developing and developed countries working with experts from within the UN system. Headed by Professor Jeffrey Sachs, the Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on the MDGs, this global effort will help identify what is needed?in terms of policy, expanded capacity, required investments and their financing for countries to meet all the goals.

Advocate: UNDP is working with the UN system and with international and civil society partners to drive a series of advocacy and awareness-raising Millennium Campaigns within countries, based on national strategies and national needs. In the developed countries, the campaign’s primary focus will be on raising awareness and galvanizing public opinion as a means to boost development assistance, trade, debt relief, technology and other support needed to reach the MDGs. In the developing world, the aim is to build coalitions for action and help governments set priorities (including budget priorities) and use resources more effectively.

Q&A Millennium Development Goals

What are the MDGs?

• The MDGs summarize the development goals agreed on at international conferences and world summits during the 1990s. At the end of the decade, world leaders distilled the key goals and targets in the Millennium Declaration in September 2000.
• The new set is known as the ‘Millennium Development Goals’, which includes 8 goals, 18 targets and over 40 indicators. They have universal political support having been endorsed by 189 countries. The UN General Assembly has approved these as part of the SG’s Millennium Roadmap.
• The MDGs, to be achieved between 1990 and 2015, include:
  ・Halving extreme poverty and hunger 
  ・Achieving universal primary education 
  ・Promoting gender equality 
  ・Reducing under-five mortality by two-thirds
  ・Reducing maternal mortality by three-quarters 
  ・Reversing the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB 
  ・Ensuring environmental sustainability
  ・Developing a global partnership for development, with targets for aid, trade and debt relief

Are we on track to meet the MDGs by 2015?

• A simple extrapolation of poverty trends since 1990 would suggest that the world is on track to halving income-poverty by 2015. Unfortunately, the reality is more complicated and decidedly less satisfactory. If one excludes China, progress has been less than half the rate needed. The number of income-poor in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Latin America combined, has increased by some 10 million each year since 1990.
• At present, an estimated 1.2 billion people have to struggle every day to survive on less than US$1 per day – about the same number as a decade ago.
• Progress towards the other goals has been mixed too. In 1990, the ‘education for all’ goal was set for the year 2000. The good news is that the education gender gap was halved; but the sad truth is that the 1990s saw only a tenth of the progress needed. Not surprisingly, the goalpost was moved to 2015; but at the current rate, this promise to ensure education for all children will not be kept either, unless progress is accelerated fourfold.
• Though the goal of halving safe water by 2015 was on track, recent statistics show this progress may not be sustainable due to population growth, wastage, urbanization, and industrialization pollution.
• Progress on child and maternal mortality, malnutrition, access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation also slowed down in the 1990s compared with earlier decades. Because of the AIDS epidemic, the resurgence of other diseases (malaria, TB), and the broken state of health services, conditions have worsened markedly in the 1990s.

Are the MDGs affordable?

• Yes, they are financially affordable and technically feasible. Several countries, however, will require considerably more development assistance, improved policies and stronger institutions.
• Often conditions are bad in developing countries because of under-investment in basic social services and public action that is too focused ? basic social services should comprise an integrated package of basic education, primary health, reproductive health, nutrition, water and sanitation.
• It is unrealistic to expect that the poorest countries can meet the MDGs without extra international support. Progress in sub-Saharan Africa has fallen further behind; HIV/AIDS is undermining human development.

Do MDGs make good economic sense?

• Returns on investment in human development in low-income countries are very high. Many economies are caught in a poverty trap, due to ill health, poor nutrition, low education, limited access to safe water, and often rapid population growth. Many of the poorest countries are burdened by extreme geographical limitations – landlocked and small islands, far from world markets, tropical diseases, extreme environmental degradation, climate change.
• These various conditions – some man-made, some physical – explain why private capital flows and foreign direct investment largely by-pass many low-income regions. Extra help will be needed to extricate countries from the poverty trap.
• Investment in human development will accelerate progress towards the MDGs and also stimulate economic growth, create more jobs, enhance people’s productivity and generate additional fiscal revenue – making macro-economic stability a more feasible goal. The MDGs make excellent economic sense.

Can the resources gap be bridged?

• Cost estimates by UNICEF, World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO) suggest that meeting most MDGs by 2015 will require an additional $50 billion per year in development assistance. This implies a doubling of current aid levels.
• Although this figure may appear large in absolute terms, it represents around one-fifth of one per cent of income in donor countries.
• In light of the expected benefits in overcoming poverty and enabling millions to live healthier, longer and more productive lives, the MDGs offer an excellent investment opportunity.

Can Official Development Assistance (ODA) and debt relief make a difference?

• Aid works, when directed at development needs. The record is clear on one health project after another, exemplified by the disease control programmes supported by the Carter Center (e.g. trachoma, guinea worm, river blindness, schistosomiasis); the eradication of smallpox and polio; and the campaigns to extend immunisation.
• ODA and debt relief will be indispensable, especially for the least developed countries. Total ODA now stands at a mere one-third of the agreed target of 0.7 per cent of the combined Gross National Income of developed countries. The shortfall amounts to about $125 billion per year. While the majority have fallen short of the agreed target, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden have committed 0.7% of their GNI.
• A recent study of budgetary spending in over 30 developing countries found that two-thirds spend more on debt servicing than on basic social services. Some spend three to five times more on debt. In sub-Saharan Africa, governments spend about twice as much to comply with their financial commitment to external creditors than to comply with their social obligation to their people. Debt servicing often absorbs between one-third and one-half of the national budget – making macro-economic stability an elusive goal.
• The Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative remains the best hope for solving the debt crisis, but its implementation is painfully slow; the initiative itself should be broadened and deepened. The enhanced HIPC initiative was launched in 1999; it is encouraging that Uganda – the first country to receive HIPC support – is spending most of the debt dividend on primary education and AIDS orphans. We need to make sure that debt sustainability is measured against real human needs – specifically against the ability of countries to mobilise the resources necessary to meet the MDGs.

Is trade not more important than aid?

• Yes, but both are needed. Access for exports from poor countries to markets in rich countries – for agriculture, clothing and textiles – would significantly accelerate growth and create jobs; thereby fostering human development and reducing poverty. But, by itself, more trade will not generate enough resources to enable the poorest countries to attain the goals.
• Greater financial resources will be necessary to address the critical areas of health, education and the environment. Without more money, the poorest countries will simply be unable to meet the needs for health and education services, sanitation and water, and other critical challenges.
• Markets remain closed in areas of specific priority concern of the poorest countries: textiles and apparel, and processed agricultural commodities. Ghana, for example, can export its cocoa beans duty free to Europe, but must pay more than 25 per cent tariffs on processed chocolate; food processing is shifted to Europe, leaving Ghana bereft of the manufacturing base to escape from poverty.
• Human and institutional capacities are complementary elements that are required for countries to benefit from open trade. Poor countries often lack these elements, so that ‘aid for trade’ will remain important, even if private capital flows and foreign direct investment continue to increase.

Are countries’ capacities strong enough to handle additional funds?

• Resources alone are unlikely to be sufficient enough to ensure that poor countries attain the goals, but donor resources can play an important role in strengthening their ability to use resources effectively. This is a focus of UNDP work in many countries in partnership with governments, donors and civil society.
• Human and institutional capacities need to be made stronger. Collecting taxes efficiently and equitably, making sure that budget priorities reflect the MDGs and influence actual spending, gender-sensitive budgeting, and aligning aid with national and sub-national priorities all require strong national capacities. These are political objectives, but also expensive management needs. Donor assistance can dramatically improve service delivery and help those countries focused on improving their situation.

What are Millennium Development Goal country reports (MDGRs)

• UNDP supports monitoring of the MDGs at the country level, working in partnership with other UN agencies and in support of efforts led by national governments and involving civil society and the private sector . The premise is that country reports can help accelerate progress; they can help bring the MDGs from the global to the national level, for global target setting and national priority setting have been inadequately linked.
• The purpose of Millennium Development Goal country reports (MDGRs) is to help countries raise public awareness; promote study, scholarship, and debate around the great development challenges; forge stronger alliances; renew political commitment; and help poor countries and donors create the deep, better financed and trusted partnerships that will be needed for success.
• MDGRs show progress at a glance with a view to help focus the national debate on specific development priorities, which in turn will trigger action – in terms of policy reforms, institutional change and resource allocation.
• Their main audience is the media and the general public. MDGRs are meant to be short and easy-to-read reviews that convey messages quickly in a non-technical way. They should also provoke deeper analysis at the country level. MDGRs build upon existing reports – such as Common Country Assessments, Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers or National Human Development Reports – in order to minimise the country’s reporting burden.
• So far, ten MDGRs have been issued ? Bolivia, Cambodia, Cameroon, Chad, Madagascar, Mauritius, Nepal, Senegal, Tanzania and Viet Nam. They confirm the mixed picture on progress vis-a-vis the MDGs. Almost 40 report will be ready by the end of 2002.. The plan is to have at least one MDGR per country by the end of 2004.

Why a global MDG campaign?

• A global campaign is needed to bridge the gap between the simple messages needed for advocacy (e.g. the number living on less than a $1 a day) and poverty’s more complex reality. For ‘goals on paper’ to become a practical reality for millions of people, public attention and public action need to be sharply focused on poverty reduction and human development.
• The purpose of the campaign is to keep the eyes and actions of the world focused on the MDGs. In developed countries, the campaign will focus on making the case for aid and for urgent debt relief, based on clear evidence of results; ensuring that aid is allocated to sectors and services relevant to the MDGs; and opening markets more widely to developing countries, especially the least developed countries.
• In developing countries, the campaign will focus on mobilising domestic resources, prioritising budget expenditure on the MDGs, and strengthening human rights, democracy and good governance as specified in the Millennium Declaration. Each of these objectives must be pursued in ways sensitive to country context and target groups. It will be is absolutely critical for campaign activities to be tailored to country-specific circumstances.
• A ‘continuous campaign’ running all the way to 2015 will help transform the political and intellectual debate at the national and global levels and make the MDGs a high priority; create business plans, deeply grounded in evidence, on how to achieve the goals; build informed constituencies for more spending on health and education, by demonstrating the enormous returns from such spending; and focus on equity and human rights as part and parcel of the MDGs.
• Although efforts may start with simple slogans like ending $1-a-day poverty, if the campaign is to be sustained and change the political debate and hence public policy priorities, it must, like Rowntree did in the early 20th century United Kingdom, get deep into the facts and findings, and generate academic, public policy and political debate around the MDGs. If successful, it will quickly grow out of its early simplicity, and demonstrate to the world the amazing things that can be accomplished if we put our minds and hearts to it.