MDG (Report)

Posted: November 27th, 2013

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MDG (Report)

Introduction

The United Nations summit laid several goals and targets aimed at improving the living conditions of the poor villages around the world. The summit concluded on 8 millennium development goals, with each having its targets dated to be achieved by 2015. Six of the MDG this essay will look into are eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, improving maternal health, promoting gender equality, ensuring environmental sustainability, and combating HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases. The goals are among the many problems facing the poor villages, which are largely basic amenities.

The reason for selecting to report on these six goals is what they address, and what it means to the villages. The first being eradicating poverty, which all the goals tend to achieve, since all the problems are mostly faced due to poverty in these villages. To the villages, eradication of poverty will mean a better life, with all basic needs met. Lack of education contributes to increasing poverty especially in this current world where lack of education means a limit to most of the necessary requirements of life, such as securing a job. Improving maternal health will ensure a healthy family and communities. Promoting gender equality will ensure participation of all people in economy building. Environment degradation has taken root, and since most of the poor countries rely on agriculture, environment sustainability will be required, and also putting into consideration the increased awareness on environment means stopping further degradation. Finally, HIV/AIDS has ravished many people especially those faced with poverty, and malaria is known to be a major cause of early deaths in children, hence its controls will be of great importance to the communities. These goals, if achieved, will make a good impact to the communities.

MDG I

            The goal of this MDG was to eradicate poverty in among the poor people in the poor areas such as Asia and Africa. Poor people have been described as those earning less than a dollar a day, by the World Bank. One of The targets of this goal is to reduce by half the number of people living in poverty between the years 1990- 2015. This was meant to reduce poverty levels, by aiming to ensure that a half of the poor people lived above the poverty level defined by World Bank. The other target is achieving decent full and productive employment for all people equally among men and women, including the youth (UN Department of Public Information, goal 1). The other target was to reduce the number of people who suffered from hunger by half from 1990-2015.

There has been development since the 1990s, though the goal is still far from being achieved. In terms of poverty reduction by half, there has been improvement from 47% living in poverty to 27% currently according to the United Nations fact sheet, in the developing nations globally. This is near to target, although the World Bank has estimated that due to economic crisis, this progress may not continue as it has. The proportion of people living in hunger ha reduced, however, it has not been to the expectation of the target, and this has been caused largely by the food prices going up, and changing climate that is causing draughts and famine. The number of people suffering from hunger has fallen from 1.023 billion in 20009 to 925 million, which is the expected this year. However, this number is above undernourished people in 1990, of 815 million (UN Department of Public Information, goal 1). Employment has improved as seen in Argentina, where, “the Jefes y Jefas de Hogar programme employed two million workers within a few months,” (UN Department of Public Information, goal 1).

MDG 2

            In this goal, the target was to ensure that both boys and girls achieve primary education everywhere in the world. “Despite great strides in many countries, the target is unlikely to be met,” (UN Department of Public Information, goal 2). Enrollment has risen highly, but still, at the end of 2015, some will not have attended school. It was required that all children of school going age should attend schoolboy 2009 in order to realize this goal, but still, this has not happened. The progress is not enough to meet this goal considering that drop out cases are high in most of the developing countries such as sub-Saharan Africa.

The measures that that have contributed to this progress, in some of the countries is the removing of primary education fees in some of the countries such as, Tanzania, Kenya and Ethiopia. This has made it accessible to all people irrespective of economic status of the families; hence, the enrollment has increased. In addition, in countries such as Ghana and Nepal, there has been quite a good amount of investment in teaching infrastructure and resources. These countries are recruiting more teachers to meet the demand of the rising number of children in schools, offering additional funds for the expansion of schools. More so, the education for girl child has continued to be advocated for, hence contributing to increased enrolment. The expansion is taking place in the rural areas that had few schools to bring them closer to student. The United Nations is supporting countries in building quality primary education systems, which are aimed at reaching all children, using programs such as the ‘Basic Education in Africa Programme, which encourages that countries should adopt legal measures that ensure children get a minimum of 8-10 years of education. In order to encourage parents to let their children attend school, organization ns such as the world food programme provides food to the students, which are nutritious and good for the children. This has also contributed to the progress of this goal.

MGD 3

            The target of this goal is to eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education by 2005, and in all levels of education by 2015. the facts about this goal is that, in 2008, there were 96 girls for 100 boys enrolled in primary schools, and 95 girls for 100 boys in secondary schools in developing nations (UN Department of Public Information, goal 3). In southern Asia and northern Africa, only 20% of women are employed outside agricultural sector. The share of women in parliament is slowly rising, reaching at 19% in 2010 globally. From these facts, it is clear thee there is short of gender parity worldwide especially in developing countries.

There has been progress of women in parliament positions across the world, coming from 11% in 1990, to 19% in 2010. In terms of education, the gap has narrowed for primary and secondary education, though it is still low for higher learning institutions. Inn some countries such as Cambodia, “an initiative run by the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), in partnership with seven NGOs, provided training in political campaigning and governing to 919 women candidates,”  (UN Department of Public Information, goal 3). This has aided in increasing the number of women vying for public offices (UN Department of Public Information, goal 3). The UN educational, science and cultural organization (UNESCO) has supported the empowering of women through training and learning materials meant for promoting gender equality. The UN also offers trust fund to end violence against women managed by (UNIFEM). Progress is taking place, but still, more will need to be done if the target is to be met (UN Department of Public Information, goal 3).

MDG 5

            The targets for this goal were to reduce maternal mortality ratio by tree quarters between 1990- 2015, and to achieve universal access to reproductive health by 2015. The faces are that more than 350,000 women die due to complications in their pregnancy and during delivery, with 99% coming from the developing countries (UN Department of Public Information, goal 5). This has been attributed to the lack of maternal health care in these countries. The maternal mortality rate is reducing at a slow pace, while majority of the deaths can be avoided. About a million children are left motherless every year when they loose their mothers during delivery and after. The targets aim to reduce this rate by three quarter by2015 (UN Department of Public Information, goal 5).

There has been slow progress, however, in some countries it has worked well to reducing the maternal rate. The number of women seeking professional help during pregnancy has increased, especially in North Africa where it has shot up by 70%. In south and western Asia, the increase has been almost the same with 50%, and coverage has increased to 70 % for south, and 79% for western Asia. In 2008, 63% of births in developing world were attended by skilled health workers, which is an improvement from 53% in 1990. Some of the projects that have worked for this goal are fighting fistula in sub-Saharan Africa, widening access to health services in Egypt, and investing in mobile maternal health clinics. The UN has worked hard to using programmes such as UNICEF AND UNFPA, to campaign for accelerated maternal mortality reduction. Such projects have led to the progress, though more progress will be needed, in order to realize the goal (UN Department of Public Information, goal 5).

MDG 6

            In this goal, the targets were to halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS by 2015, achieve universal treatment for HIV/AIDS, and to halt and begin the reversing of incidents of malaria and other diseases. The facts about this goal is that over 7,400 people are infected with HIV, AND 5,500 die from AIDS related illnesses, and it remains to be the leading cause of death for reproductive women in the world today. An estimate of 33.4 people in 2008 was living with HIV, with two thirds coming from sub-Sahara. Access to treatment of HIV among the poor and middle class has increased. Malaria is known to cause death of a child every 45 seconds, with almost 905of this deaths occurring in Africa, making up for a fifth of child mortality in Africa (UN Department of Public Information, goal 6).

There has been progress of reducing these diseases largely due to increased awareness. The infection rate has reduced from 3.7 million in 1996, to 2.7 million in 2008. Death from AIDS has reduced from 2.2 million in 2004, to 2 million in 2008. The use of antiretroviral treatment has increased from 400,000 to more than 5 million users. Major increase in funding has helped to reduce malaria (UN Department of Public Information, goal 5). The production of mosquito nets has risen from 30 million to 150 million annually. Distribution of insecticide treated net, has reduced the infection of malaria. The UNICEF, WHO, UNFPA and UNAID have aided development in of programmes for prevention of mother –to-child transmission of HIV. These organizations have also provided aid for malaria combating. The goal of combating this disease has managed to stabilize the diseases; however, reversing the disease infections is yet to be achieved (UN Department of Public Information, goal 5).

MDG 7

            This goal targeted to integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes with the aim of reversing loss of environmental resources. The other target was to reduce biodiversity loss, aiming to reduce it significantly by 2010. The third target was reducing by half the proportion of people without safe drinking water and sanitation, and finally, to improve significantly the lives of 100 million slum dwellers by 2020 (UN Department of Public Information, goal 7). Some of the facts about this goal are, 1.7 billion people gaining access to safe drinking water currently, however, 884 million people lack access to it, and around 2.6 billion people lack basic amenities such as toilets. The target of biodiversity loss reduction has not been met, and loss of current endangered species will still be lost. Finally, slum improvement is getting tougher considering that more people in urban areas are unable to keep up with the rising cost of life, (UN Department of Public Information, goal 7). The aim of this goal is to ensure that the environment is stopped from depleting, and ensure improvement to its sustainability.

The progress is very slow, and it is not likely that the target will be met by 2015, considering that half population of developing nations is lacking sanitation. In terms if biodiversity, nearly 17000 species of plants and animals are facing extinction, while this number continues to grow. The main cause of biodiversity loss is consumption, loss of habitat, and population as well as climatic change. Deforestation has slowed down; through it is still growing in some areas. The improvement for slum dwellers has already been achieved twice, with over 200 million slum people gaining access to water and basic amenities, and better and more spacious housing (UN Department of Public Information, goal 7). This helps them to have better prevention from diseases, although the pace may not be sustained due to increasing people becoming unable to afford urban life. this goal mil not be realized, especially maintaining biodiversity since people will continue to consume, such as firewood in developing countries, which is the major source of fuel for many families.

Conclusion

            In this report, I have found that the United Nations is committed to eradicating poverty in the developing nations, and ensuring a balanced life, with access for education, basic amen9ities, and ways of maintaining it such as environmental sustainability, which aims to ensure an environment conducive for all. I realized that some of the goals have been achieved to some extent, but majority of the targets are not likely to be achieved in their set time. Some of the reasons stopping achievement of these targets are financial, and some it is due to their nature, such as biodiversity, which means that people should stop use of firewood as a source of fuel, which may not be possible in developing countries. Others have been due to lack of the needed facilities such as health centers and schools around the rural areas.

Works Cited

UN Department of Public Information. Achieve Universal Primary Education. United Nations Summit, 2010. PDF.

UN Department of Public Information. Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Other Diseases. United Nations Summit, 2010. PDF.

UN Department of Public Information. Ensure Environmental Sustainability. United Nations Summit, 2010. PDF.

UN Department of Public Information. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. United Nations Summit, 2010. PDF.

UN Department of Public Information. Improve Maternal Health. United Nations Summit, 2010. PDF.

UN Department of Public Information. Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women. United Nations Summit, 2010. PDF.