Assessing the progress towards the Millenium Development Goals - goal by goal

With only five years left to meet the MDGs, WDM has analysed where progress has been made. It is striking that people in Sub-Saharan Africa are being neglected. WDM believes that this worrying trend is at least partly due to a post 9/11 preoccupation with national security interests at the expense of poverty alleviation strategies. This is likely to be entrenched by the UK still deeper if you read between the lines of recent comments by Nick Clegg and Andrew Mitchell that the UK will increase aid for fragile and conflict ridden countries. 

Goal 1: Eradicate extreme hunger and poverty

The flagship target of the MDG programme is that the number of people living on less than $1.25 per day is halved. We appear on course globally, but Africa is being left behind. Sub-Saharan Africa is now the only region where more than half of the population still live in extreme poverty.

Conversely, no progress was made in reducing hunger between 2000 and 2007. Since then we’ve seen the 2008 food price spike, during which, for example, the price of maize meal in Nairobi more than doubled. The result is that hunger topped 1 billion in 2009 and although some of the latest figures show that there has been minimal progress, current high food prices are likely to set this progress back in next year's hunger roll-call.

The spike was driven by speculation on food by banks and hedge funds in rich countries, a practice which the World Development Movement is now campaigning to regulate.

Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education

In order to meet this goal, we would have needed universal enrolment in the first year of primary school by 2009. Despite significant progress, this has not happened and it’s now essentially impossible to meet the goal on time.

In half of the sub-Saharan countries with available data, around a third of children drop out of school – this is the effect of the economic stresses on families in this region. Achieving goal 2, of course, has a knock-on effect to our ability to meet Goal, 3, discussed below.

Goal 3: Promote gender equality and the empowerment of women

We have already failed to meet the 2005 target for equal schooling, with gender inequality in primary education still highest in those regions with lowest overall enrolment. This indicates that where families cannot afford to send all their children to primary school, they are sending the boys. Leaving girls behind without education commits them to a life of poverty, and further inequality across the board.

Goal 4: Reduce child mortality

Globally, we are on target to meet the goal of cutting by two-thirds the number of children dying before the age of five. Northern Africa is a particular success story, having almost met the target already.

However, once again sub-Saharan Africa falls behind. Here, one in seven children still die before their fifth birthday, leaving little chance of achieving the goal in several countries.

Goal 5: Improve maternal health

As of 2005, not one region was on track to meet the goal of reducing deaths in childbirth by three-quarters. In sub-Saharan Africa there had been almost no progress at all since 1990, with almost one in every hundred births causing the death of the mother.

Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases

The rate of new HIV infections has started to fall – a genuine success. Anti-retroviral treatment for those living with HIV/AIDS has increased significantly, but falls far short of the 2015 target of universal access. Treatment in sub-Saharan Africa has tripled but the drugs are still reaching less than half of those that need them.

Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability

The target of a significant reduction in the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010 has been missed. Environmental protection is not a priority for governments focussed only on short-term GDP growth. Environmental damage, however, has both immediate and long-term affects on the lives of the poor, leading to loss of livelihoods, and the ability for communities to feed themselves. Climate change, one of the underlying causes of bio-diversity loss, is far from being solved, and as a result, increased bio-diversity loss throughout the world seems imminent.

All regions except sub-Saharan Africa and Oceania have met or almost met the goal of halving the proportion of people without drinking water. A successful campaign by the World Development Movement has ended the rush to water privatisation, but its legacy is retarded progress on this target in Africa. And climate change is likely to undermine this progress further.

The twin target of halving the proportion of people without access to proper sanitation, on the other hand, is set for failure. The number of people without improved sanitation facilities – currently 2.7 billion – is actually rising.

Goal 8: Develop a global partnership for development

This goal is a recognition of the wider debt, aid and trade conditions that govern success in all other development aims. It is the failure to meet this overarching goal that all others are falling behind.

The Gleneagles G8 commitments should have doubled assistance to Africa. In fact aid to Africa has increased by just 3%. Trade talks, which in any case were likely to worsen the deal for poor countries, have stalled.

The financial system remains designed exclusively for the benefit of the rich, but its recent collapse has at least made reform possible. The US has introduced some regulation on food speculation, and momentum is building behind the World Development Movement’s campaign for similar pro-poor banking rules in Europe.