MDGs Report 2008 launched in Nairobi

MDGs Report 2008

12 September 2008, Nairobi - In a press conference on Friday at UN in Nairobi Headquarters, the new UNDP Resident Representative, United Nations Humanitarian and Resident Coordinator for Kenya, Mr. Aeneas C. Chuma, briefed more than 18 TV and print reporters on the 2008 MDG Report and the High Level Event scheduled for 25 September in New York. The briefing also included the Director-General of UNON and Executive Director of UN Habitat, Mrs. Anna Tibaijuka; Dr. David Okello, WHO Rep. in Kenya and one of the world's leading experts on the MDGs, Mr. Jan Vandemoortele of UNICEF - New York.

This coincided with the launch of the Millennium Development Goals Report 2008, one of the key inputs for the High-Level Event on the Millennium Development Goals.

The Millennium Development Goals Report 2008 (full text) is the most comprehensive global assessment of progress to date, based on work carried out by the Inter-Agency and Expert Group on the official MDG Indicators.  It provides hard evidence for each of the eight MDGs, showing what has been accomplished so far in each of the world's major geographic regions.  And it outlines what the world needs to do to succeed by 2015. 

There has been encouraging progress in developing countries in primary school enrolment and in such health measures as measles vaccinations, the use of insecticide-treated bednets, anti-retroviral therapies for AIDS and access to improved drinking water.  Some progress has been made towards gender equality, with more girls receiving education and more employment opportunities being available to women. 

An addendum to the Report reflects the new data on global poverty just released by the World Bank.  These show that the number of extremely poor people in the world fell from 1.8 billion in 1990 to 1.4 billion in 2005 and that the proportion of extremely poor people fell from 41.7 per cent to 25.7 per cent over the same period.  If progress continues at this pace until 2015, the world will achieve the overarching Goal of reducing extreme poverty by half.

However, progress has been highly concentrated in Eastern and South-Eastern Asia, where the proportion of extremely poor fell from 56 to 18 per cent.  Almost everywhere else, the decline in the proportion of extremely poor has been more modest.  In Sub-Saharan Africa, there were 100 million more extremely poor people in 2005 than in 1990.   If the past slow progress in reducing poverty in most regions continues, there will still be 1 billion people living in extreme poverty in 2015.

Similarly, progress towards most of the other Goals has been inadequate.  More than half a million women, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, die each year during pregnancy or as a result of childbirth.  Some 2.5 billion people face health risks because of inadequate sanitation.   There are eight deaths of children under five years of age for every 100 children born in developing countries – and almost twice this number in Sub-Saharan Africa.  The world is still far from achieving gender equality and empowering women so that they can fully contribute to and fully benefit from successful development. 

The Millennium Development Goals Report 2008 also reinforces what the report of MDG Gap Task Force says about international support for the MDGs: progress towards Goal 8 – and delivery on the specific commitments on aid, trade, debt relief, and access to new technologies and essential drugs – has been mixed, but generally inadequate. 

At the launch today, the Secretary-General stressed that, "Despite the challenges, there are enough successes to prove that most of the Goals are reachable in all countries. In most cases, we already know what needs to be done, and how. Now we need an aggressive push to get the world on track."

The Report, while noting that the tasks are wide-ranging and will vary from country to country, points up a few broad principles of action: to maintain a multi-dimensional approach to poverty and to ensure that reducing poverty is an integral element of all development policies; to sustain actions to ensure gender equality and to empower women; to give greater attention to rural populations and the specific difficulties they encounter in achieving the MDGs; to minimize the other segments of society at risk of being bypassed by the MDGs; and to strengthen the global partnership for development.

"Looking ahead to 2015 and beyond, there is no question that we can achieve the overarching goal: we can put an end to poverty," Secretary-General BAN states in the foreword to the report. "But it requires an unswerving, collective, long-term effort."

Every effort must be made to find some means of redressing this situation and the High-level Event could serve as a starting point for doing so.