Poverty is not history but goals brought focus
These Millennium Development Goals, or MDGs, were agreed in 2000, spawned by the optimism of a new century, and setting new global priorities and targets on how to eradicate the worst forms of poverty, hunger, and disease.
The UN has already reported that some of the goals were achieved before their 2015 deadline, while others will not be met. But commentators are keen to emphasise that, as a global ‘recipe’ for the fight against poverty, the MDGs have been truly successful.
They marked the first time that the world’s governments agreed an overall framework and a shared set of priorities for global “development”. And they prompted a major increase in investment by developing countries in health and education systems, and by rich countries in vaccines, debt cancellation and support mechanisms such as overseas aid.
What’s more, the goals focused the attention of UN agencies, non-governmental organisations, international donors, foundations, and activists, and provided them with a shared framework to highlight the urgency of combating poverty, hunger, and disease — and to measure their impact.
A quick comparison of Africa now with the situation before the MDGs were agreed shows the important impact the goals’ existence has had on poor people and poor communities across that continent: The decade before the MDGs showed Africa as a region with slow economic growth, high poverty rates, and an increasingly heavy burden of international debt and diseases such as HIV and Aids and malaria.
By contrast, in the decade after the agreement of the MDGs, the picture changed radically: Overall annual economic growth in Sub-Sahara Africa, which averaged 2.3% before 2000, more than doubled, to 5.7% during the 2000-2010 period, making it one of the world’s fastest growing regions economically. Poverty rates in the region fell from almost 60% in the 1990s to 48.5% over the first decade of this century.
Similarly, deaths as a result of disease have dropped significantly: In the peak year 2004, 1.6m died as a consequence of malaria, for instance, and that figure dropped to 1.1m per year by 2010.
A recent report by Dóchas highlights that there were also great improvements in the fight against HIV and Aids. Today, more than 6m Africans receive antiretroviral treatment and are living longer and healthier lives with an infection that was once considered a death sentence.
The inclusion of a HIV-specific goal (Goal 6) in the MDGs signalled a global commitment towards ending Aids and prompted African governments to take the disease seriously, and use their national health budgets to bring HIV treat- ment to poorer communities too.
Globally, nine out of 10 children now go to school, and enrolment levels are the same for girls and boys, wiping out inequality in classrooms the world over. The number of people without access to safe drinking water has been cut dramatically — with 89% of people across the world now having access. Some 200m people living in urban slums have improved living conditions due to the provision of water and sanitation.
In short, the global goals inspired concerted action across a range of fields, catalysing governments and increasing public awareness and motivation, and — crucially — holding ministries to account.
The MDGs are far from perfect, but they revolutionised the way the UN and its member countries organised their priorities. Clearly, the MDGs are not the only factor behind the improvements since 2000, but without doubt they have played a huge role in making a huge difference in the lives of some of the world’s poorest people.
The challenge facing us now is two-fold: Not to lose the momentum now that the end point is coming into view, and to learn from the successes to determine our global priorities for the future.
As UN member states prepare to meet in New York, Irish NGOs remind them of the factors that helped make the MDGs a success: First, the new framework should be short, with no more than a dozen priorities that are easy to remember and clear enough to inspire political will — and political action.
Second, the new framework should put governments’ accountability at the fore: All governments, rich and poor, should be made to answer for the progress, or lack thereof, on the promises they made to the world’s poorest people.
Thirdly, rich countries must assume a greater responsibility, and not just focus on their role as aid donors. When it comes to problems such as climate change, for instance, richer countries have a greater responsibility to ensure the problem they created does not continue to disproportionately affect those least responsible.
And finally, the new framework should address the issues that poor people want to see addressed.
Dóchas members have been involved in countless consultations with poor communities across the globe, and what they have heard in those conversations has been remarkably consistent: Poor people the world over want their leaders to address rising inequality and environmental degradation, and they want their governments to listen to them. Responsive, inclusive, and accountable governments come up tops in the wish list of the world’s poorest people, followed closely by their desire to see fair economic rules.
In the past decade, we have learned that a global agreement on what matters most is invaluable. And in the year we mark the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s speech outlining his dream and his “eternal opposition to poverty, racism”, we also recall the words of another world leader who visited Ireland 50 years ago. US president John F Kennedy said: “By defining our goal more clearly, by making it seem more manageable and less remote, we can help all people to see it, to draw hope from it, and to move irresistibly towards it.”
We now know that the goals we set to help end poverty have had the desired effect.
And we know that we can learn from the experience of the past 13 years, to ensure that we stay the course and deliver on the promises we made to the world’s poorest people.
* Hans Zomer is director of Dóchas, the umbrella group for Ireland’s development NGOs. www.dochas.ie
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