Attaining MDGs: Bangladesh perspective

At the Millennium Summit in 2000, the global community committed to achieving sustainable changes on a massive scale for millions of people across the world. To build a more peaceful, prosperous, and just world, the heads of state and government from 193 countries identified the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to be met by 2015. It is heartening to mention that Bangladesh has made a remarkable progress in achieving the targets of MDGs.
The Bangladesh Planning Commission publication Millennium Development Goals: Bangladesh Progress Report 2015 shows that the country has attained success in the areas of poverty alleviation, food security, primary school enrolment, gender parity at primary and secondary-level education, lowering of infant and under-five mortality and maternal mortality rates, improvement in immunisation coverage; and reduction in the incidence of communicable diseases. However, the attainment of a few targets of MDGs is associated with several challenges, too. The existence of poverty pockets, prevalence of youth unemployment and underemployment, stunting and wasting among the under-five children, reducing dropout rates and enhancing quality of education at the primary level, universal access to reproductive health and resource constraints are identified as stumbling blocks to fulfilling the targets of MDGs in Bangladesh.
Bangladesh has made commendable progress in respect of 'Goal 1: Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger'. It has sustained a GDP growth rate of 6 per cent or above in the recent years that has played a positive role in eradicating poverty. However, unemployment as well as underemployment is still persistent, especially among the young people between 15 and 24 years of age. Moreover, while Bangladesh has demonstrated its capacity for achieving the goal of poverty reduction within the target timeframe, attaining food security and nutritional wellbeing for this populous country still remains a challenge.
In relation to 'Goal 2: Achieve Universal Primary Education', significant progress has been made in increasing equitable access to education, reduction of dropouts, improvement in completion of the cycle, and implementation of a number of quality enhancement measures in primary education. However, the challenges under Goal-2 include attaining the targets of primary education completion rate and the adult literacy rate. A large part of the physically and mentally retarded children remains out of the schooling system. Improvement of quality of education is also a challenge at the primary and higher secondary levels. It needs to be taken care of on priority basis.
 'Goal 3: Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women' points out that Bangladesh has already achieved the targets of gender parity in primary and secondary education at the national level. There has been steady improvement in the social and political empowerment scenario of women in the country. The Bangladesh Government is committed to attaining the objective of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), Beijing Platform for Action and MDGs in conformity with the fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution. It has adopted a series of programmes for ensuring sustainable development of women.
As shown in the segment 'Goal 4: Reduce Child Mortality', Bangladesh is on track in meeting the target of this goal measured in three different indicators like under-five mortality rate, infant mortality rate and immunisation against measles. The under-five mortality rate was 151 per 1000 live births in 1990 which came down to 41 per 1000 live births in 2013, thereby achieving the MDG target before the stipulated time. Likewise, the infant mortality rate was 94 per 1000 live births in 1990 which reduced to 32 per 1000 live births in 2013. Despite these improvements, there are challenges ahead. While the mortality rates have improved, childhood injuries, especially drowning, have emerged as a considerable public health problem responsible for a full quarter of the deaths among children of ages 1-4 years.
Under 'Goal 5: Improve Maternal Health', Bangladesh is shown to have made a laudable progress.
The maternal mortality rate in Bangladesh in 1990/91 was 574 per 100,000 live births, which was one of the highest in the world. According to Bangladesh Maternal Mortality Survey, maternal mortality declined from 322 in 2001 to 194 in 2010, a 40 per cent decline in nine years. The government organisation- non-government organisation (GO-NGO) collaboration has played a significant role in the health sector development in Bangladesh. The government views the NGOs as a way of extending its reach, particularly in the implementation of national strategies and policies. The NGOs' participation in microcredit programmes has been seen as being linked to better child survival and the expansion of electricity coverage. And road infrastructure has helped the immunisation programmes fan out to the rural areas. However, challenges remain in the area of access to reproductive health.
Bangladesh has performed well in halting communicable diseases as highlighted in the 'Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Other Diseases'. Available data shows that the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in Bangladesh currently is less than 0.1 per cent and thus the country's position is still below an epidemic level. According to National AIDS/STD Programmes, proportion of population aged 15-24 years with comprehensive correct knowledge of HIV/AIDS is 17.70 per cent in 2013. There was a significant improvement in the reduction of malarial deaths in the country over the years. The prevalence of malaria per 100,000 people was 776.9 in 2008, which came down to 433.9 in 2014.  In relation to 'Goal 7: Ensure Environmental Sustainability', data shows that without keeping in consideration the issue of arsenic contamination, 97.9 per cent of the population of Bangladesh is using improved/safe drinking water; 55.9 per cent of the people are using improved sanitation in 2012-13. However, access to safe water for all is a challenge, as arsenic and salinity intrusion as a consequence of climate change fallout will impede access to safe water, especially for the poor.
For attaining 'Goal 8: Develop a Global Partnership for Development', Bangladesh has taken a few initiatives. During the last twenty-four years, the country, on an average, received US$ 1.74 billion in official development assistance (ODA) per year.
Out of the 34 member-states of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), nine countries provided US$ 0.75 billion ODA to Bangladesh in 2013-14. The amount was about 24.25 per cent of the total ODA received by Bangladesh in that particular year. The MDG sectors like education, health, social welfare, labour, public administration and social infrastructure together with agriculture and rural development constituted around 50.82 per cent of the total ODA outlay received during 1990-91 to 2013-14. The Government of Bangladesh has taken up plans to ensure universal access to information through harmonious development of telecommunication network and building a well-developed, strong and reliable telecommunication infrastructure for effective implementation of its ICT policy, and ultimately for complementing its 'Vision 2021'.
The last Chapter of the publication is titled 'Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Transforming our World'. On 2nd August 2015, the United Nations' 193 members agreed to an agenda for the world's sustainable development over the next 15 years. The agenda has pledged to leave no one behind and was formally adopted by the world leaders at the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit in September, 2015. The final document that the United Nations summit has adopted as the post-2015 development agenda is called 'Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Global Action'. It contains five sections, including the 17 SDGs to be implemented by all countries at the regional and global levels.
The achievements of MDGs in Bangladesh's perspective are not unmixed as some targets are already met, some are on-track to be achieved in the coming days; and some targets need additional time, resources and technological know-how in order to be attained. However, it can rightly be said that Bangladesh's experience of the implementation of MDGs and the lessons learnt will be helpful in attaining the upcoming targets of Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.
The writer is an independent researcher.
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Millennium Development Goals: Bangladesh Progress Report 2015 Published by General Economics Division, Bangladesh Planning Commission Government of the People's Republic of Bangladesh, with the assistance from 'Support to Sustainable and Inclusive Planning (SSIP) Project', UNDP Bangladesh,
September 2015;
pages 138