Namibia Surpasses Millennium Development Targets

Namibia Surpasses Millennium Development Targets

WINDHOEK (Namibia) Nov 30 (Bernama) - President Hifikepunye Pohamba says Namibia has achieved important milestones and surpassed certain targets set by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Namibia Press Agency (NAMPA) reported.

Speaking at the 5th Swapo-Party congress that began here on Thursday, Pohamba said the country continues to make progress towards the attainment of medium and long-term national development goals.

In education, school enrolment figures for girls are higher than that for boys and progress has been made in the provision of potable water, housing and sanitation for the people.

The country has fared well in the prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission and in providing anti-retroviral treatment for HIV-positive people.

Electricity supply to households, businesses and public facilities have been expanded through the national power grid and off-grid rural electrification programmes.

Pohamba said that substantial resources have also been allocated to boost local food production and to expand the Green Scheme Initiative, with over 6,000 hectares of land under cultivation today with a plan to reach 27,000 hectares and to produce food by 2030.

Somet 600 delegates from the party's various wings, unions and political regions are attending the four-day congress to elect Swapo-Party's vice-president who will stand as candidate in the 2014 presidential elections.

 

PH poverty reduction remains dismal, says UN

JAKARTA – The Philippines’ performance in meeting its Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) has remained dismal with barely three years into the deadline to achieve the objectives set by United Nations member-states, according to a UN report. 

The “Asian-Pacific Regional MDG Report: Accelerating Equitable Achievement of the MDGs” was one of several reports cited by the Asia-Pacific Disaster Report 2012, a joint publication of the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) and the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific (ESCAP). 

The 134-page publication was released during the just-concluded 5th Asian Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction, held in Yogyakarta, some 430 kilometers southeast of the Indonesian capital. 

The UN report on the MDGs disclosed, among others, that the Philippines was years behind on most of its development objectives. 

Of the seven MDGs, the country got failing grades in four – eradicating extreme poverty, achieving universal primary education, reducing child mortality and sustaining maternal health. 

On the other hand, it received favorable scores in gender equality, reducing tuberculosis and HIV-AIDS prevalence and ensuring environmental sustainability.

The UN described as “regressing” and “no progress” the Philippines’ performance in education-related objectives, and “slow” in dealing with anti-poverty reduction, child mortality reduction, as well as maternal health problems. 

But it cited the country for being an “early achiever” in gender equality, the campaign against TB and environmental issues like forest cover, protected areas, and reducing carbon dioxide emissions. 

The Philippines was “on track” in other environment-related issues like basic sanitation and use of safe drinking water, it also said. 

The nine other Association of Southeast Asian Nations member-states also scored regressing and no progress ratings for some of their MDG targets: Indonesia, HIV-AIDS and forest cover; Laos, HIV-AIDS and TB, and forest cover and carbon dioxide emissions; Cambodia, education and environment; Brunei Darussalam, environment; Malaysia, forest cover and carbon dioxide emissions; Vietnam, carbon dioxide emissions; Myanmar, forest cover and carbon dioxide emissions; Thailand, education, child mortality, forest cover and carbon dioxide emissions; and Singapore, maternal health. 

According to the UNISDR and ESCAP report, “establishing direct links between MDGs and disasters is not an easy task, considering the complex interplay of the various types of economic, social, urban and environmental vulnerabilities.”

However, the report said, “several recent case studies clearly show the impact of disasters on several MDGs.” 

“When cyclone Sid struck Bangladesh in 2007, its impacts on the economy amounted to $1.67 billion. Damage and losses of $925 million in the social sector affected MDGs like achieving universal primary education, reducing child mortality and combating HIV-AIDs and malaria and TB.,” it said. 

“Damage and losses in the production sector adversely affected other MDGs, including eradicating poverty, while losses in infrastructure affected MDG no. 7, or ensuring environmental sustainability.” 

In Pakistan, the report noted that “there was sufficient damage and loss data from several post-disaster needs assessments of successive disasters with impacts on the education sector.” 

While the south Asian country was on track to realize the MDG indicator for primary enrolment in schools based on its statistical trend in 2004, “slower progress” was recorded in 2008 and 2009, said the report. 

“It follows that the disasters resulted in the reduced quality, quantity and prevailing level of education. Development efforts to attain MDG targets without appropriate risk reduction measures can unintentionally increase levels of vulnerability and consequential disaster risks,” it further said. 

The agency noted that the years of implementing MDGs have resulted in “important progress towards reducing global disparities and the risks of disasters.” 

Each year, Southeast Asia suffers damage in excess of $4.4 billion, or about 0.2 percent of the region’s gross domestic product from disaster losses associated with floods, typhoons, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and droughts.” 

“Annual economic losses due to disasters have been found to be the highest for the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam, in that order, while Singapore and Brunei present the lowest losses,” said the same report. 

Margareta Wahlstrom, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s special representative on disaster risk reduction, has noted “countries were increasingly embracing the view that minimizing disaster risk was essential for achieving sustainable development.” 

“Many have started to take action to build the resilience of communities, but more needs to be done to protect various population segments that are vulnerable to disasters, such as women, children, people with disabilities and the aged as very little concerted efforts have been made to deal with these populations,” she said. 

Wahlstrom urged governments to “focus on development strategies that reduce exposure to hazards and invest more in disaster risk reduction policies to achieve greater resilience against disasters.”

Violence is a serious cause of poverty, the UN needs to address this

 

The Millennium Development Goals have become one of the most positive initiatives fostered by the United Nations during these first years of the 21st century. Humanity has made significant progress in advancing a world free of poverty and social exclusion, while showing that such a goal is not just desirable but also achievable. The progress made in a few years used to take decades to become a reality. Today, fewer children die of preventable diseases, more girls are educated and the fight against HIV-Aids has become a global public health priority.

Different voices have raised suggestions and concerns about how to move forward when we reach the deadline set for the MDGs in 2015. Happily, most voices agree that we have to follow a similar path, as was shown in the Rio+20 conference held in Brazil. There, the international community suggested that new global goals should be set for the future, after 2015, combining poverty reduction targets with sustainable development concerns. This means that the architecture of the new global goals should be built in two pillars: reducing poverty and promoting sustainable development.

My government supports this approach and we expect that the UN will embrace such a framework with enthusiasm and commitment.

None the less, I also believe that the new global goals will fall short of what is expected of them if the international community cannot also agree on specific targets aimed at ensuring universal access to justice and reduction of extreme violence for vulnerable groups.

My country, Guatemala, continues to suffer from multiple forms of violence and high levels of impunity. Based on our experience, I can affirm that extreme violence, insecurity and limited access to justice are factors that prevent development in general, and particularly ensure the continuation of poverty and social exclusion. Let me explain this.

First, violence suffered by women, children and other vulnerable groups translates into impunity because a large proportion of people have limited or no access to justice. Impunity derived from low coverage and poor quality of justice is one of the major drivers of poverty (and intergenerational reproduction of poverty), because long exposure to a violent environment prevents otherwise perfectly healthy women and children gaining access to economic and social opportunities that may help them escape from the poverty trap.

Second, violence reproduces violence itself. The vicious circle of violence and impunity transforms many vulnerable groups into agents that reproduce abuse and mistreatment from one generation to another.

But a life without extreme violence is not just desirable, it is also possible. Actually, in my home country, we have demonstrated in the last three years – and particularly in the last 10 months of my administration – that fighting impunity and reducing murder is possible. Our homicide rate has reduced in a sustained manner and I can proudly say that we are not far from the day when there will not be a single homicide in one week.

Allow me to be bold on this. Extreme violence and impunity are still too high in Guatemala by international standards. But if we can claim some progress even in these difficult circumstances, why can't the world set a goal that will allow thousands to live a life free of violence?

The progress made in Guatemala would not have been possible without the support of the international community. The UN and bilateral co-operation have played the right role of strengthening the justice system and they have helped us particularly in enhancing the state's capacity for crime prosecution and crime prevention. This support, combined with the right national policies and national leadership, shows that a world free of extreme violence and with universal access to justice is desirable and possible.

Women, children and other vulnerable groups deserve to live in a world without poverty, but they also deserve a world without extreme violence. Humanity can make a big jump towards living on a better planet if we set global development goals aimed at poverty reduction, protecting the environment, and reducing extreme violence.

We should pass our children and grandchildren a planet that is free from want, free from extreme abuse and environmentally friendly. A planet where all people are treated in a dignified manner, no matter their country of birth, the colour of their skin, their sex or sexual preference, their age or their private wealth. A world that is, finally, free from fear.

Millennium Development Goals analysis, by Ban Ki-moon

Millennium Development Goals analysis, by Ban Ki-moon

 

 

The most vulnerable have been left behind.
This year, the UN Secretary General’s evaluation of the Millennium Development Goals focussed on the progress made in achieving certain targets. However, in his 2011 report – which focussed on the impact of the MDGS on the lives of people living in extreme poverty – Ban Ki-moon painted a far more mitigated picture:

Reaching out to the poorest
“On the one hand, it is clear that the MDGs have made a tremendous difference… Despite the global economic downturn and the food and energy crises, we are on track to meet the MDG targets for poverty-reduction. At the same time, progress has been uneven. The poorest of the poor are being left behind. We need to reach out and lift them into our lifeboat. Now is the time for equity, inclusion, sustainability and women’s empowerment.”

Benefits unevenly shared
“We have success stories to point to, to build on and to scale up. But achieving all the MDGs will require extra effort. Even where we have seen rapid growth… progress is not universal, nor are the benefits evenly shared. Stubbornly high unemployment persists in rich and poor countries alike.  And in many cases, the wealth gap is widening between the prosperous and the marginalized and between urban and rural. Gender parity in primary and secondary education is still beyond reach in many regions. Moreover, enrolment disparities are notable between girls from wealthy families and girls from poorer families.”

Domino effect of deprivations
“We face a similar situation with child mortality. There are huge differences in survival rates between children with educated mothers and those with unschooled mothers. We must protect against the domino effect in which one early deprivation leads to another, and another, and another. Let us also look at the post-2015 picture. When the MDGs were first articulated, we knew that achieving them would, in a sense, be only half the job. We knew that too many men, women and children would go largely untouched by even our best efforts. That is why we are already working with all our partners to sustain the momentum and to carry on with an ambitious post-2015 development 

agenda.”

Taken from an address given by Ban Ki-moon on 7 July 2011 to the Economic and Social Council at the United Nations in Geneva.