SDGs are coming: Lessons from MDGs implementation

The United Nations Millennium Declaration, which set Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), was adopted in 2000 and endorsed by heads of government and states of 189 UN member countries. It covers eight goals, twenty targets and about sixty five indicators. The eight goals include: (i) eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, (ii) achieving universal primary education, (iii) promoting gender equality and empowering women, (iv) reducing child mortality, (v) improving maternal health, (vi) combating HIV/AIDs, malaria and other diseases, (vii) ensuring environmental sustainability and (viii) developing a global partnership for development. Under these goals, targets and indicators were set. These are observable and measurable. Amid mixed achievements of MDGs, the world leaders are going to adopt this month another UN declaration - a declaration on sustainable development goals (SDGs). This framework will have 17 goals divided in 169 targets and having 304 indicators. Naturally, SDGs will be more intensive as well as exhaustive.
So far Bangladesh is concerned, it has made impressive progress in some targets of poverty reduction, health, education and gender equity. The country has met targets (halving numbers of base year 1990-91) in reducing proportion of population below national upper poverty line, reducing poverty gap ratio, improving the number of underweight children below five years of age, increasing net emolument ratio in primary education, establishing gender parity in primary and secondary education, reducing under-five mortality rate, reducing malaria-induced deaths, providing anti-malaria drugs and improving cure rate of tuberculosis.
According to Bangladesh Progress Report 2015 on MDGs, the country is on track against the targets of (i) net enrolment ratio in primary education, (ii) infant mortality rate (per thousand live births), (iii) HIV prevalence and (iv) proportion of population using an improved drinking water sources.  
Meanwhile, the British Medical Journal (BMJ) in an article, titled, National Leadership: Driving Forward the Updated Global Strategy for Women, Children and Adolescents, published on September 15, 2015, highlighted Bangladesh's progress in women and children health. The journal lauded Bangladesh's success in spite of weak governance and lack of highly trained health workers. The journal mentioned remarkable progress in women and child health in 10 countries like Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, Laos, Nepal, Peru, Rwanda and Vietnam.
Bangladesh, however, has many challenges. According to government's progress report, titled, Millennium Development goals: Bangladesh progress Report, 2015, targets could not be achieved against many indicators like (i) employment to population ratio, (ii) proportion of population below minimum level of dietary energy consumption, (iii) completion of primary schooling (grade 5), (iv)  adult literacy rate of 15+ year-old population, (v) literacy rate of 15+24 year-old (women & men), (vi) ratio of girls to boys in tertiary education, (vii) share of women in wage employment in the non-agricultural sector, (viii) proportion of seats held by women in national parliament, (ix) full coverage of 1-year-old children immunised against measles, (x) proportion of births attended by skilled health personnel, (xi) adolescent birth rate, (xii) antenatal care coverage, (xiii) prevalence of malaria, and (xiv) proportion of population with access to affordable essential drugs on sustainable basis.
It is to be observed that there are some interesting features in Millennium Development goals: Bangladesh progress Report, 2015. First of all, the report admits some challenges like existence of poverty pockets, prevalence of unemployment and underemployment among the youth, reduction of dropout rate, enhancing quality of education at the primary and secondary level, universal access to reproductive health, stunting and wasting among the under-five children and resource constraints. The MDG financing strategy for Bangladesh, prepared by the  General Economics Division (GED) of Bangladesh Planning Commission in 2011, suggested minimum requirement of US$3.0 billion per annum for attaining the MDGs in the country. But Bangladesh, on an average, received US $1.74 billion per annum from 1990-91 to 2013-14.
The report emphasises some serious initiatives in creating employment opportunities, more efforts in improving maternal health and universal access to reproductive health, more attention on antenatal care coverage and more skilled health personnel to attend births. Nutrition of children has also been emphasised.
The success in achieving some targets of MDGs has been associated with attaining more than 6.0 per cent GDP (gross domestic product) growth over last few years, remittance from abroad, export of ready-made garments, expansion of medical services, expansion of educational institutions and raising consciousness among the people. But there are many weaknesses in the economy. First of all, required investment is necessary. This again requires an environment favourable for investment. Without investment, employment opportunities can not be created. At present Bangladesh has 3.0 million unemployed youth population. Every year, according to available statistics, 2.0 million active population is entering the labour market. Investment in different sectors (industry, agriculture & service) is necessary for absorbing the growing labour force.
Secondly, the health services should be expanded and strengthened. The country has medical network up to union level. Moreover, there is a large number of community health clinics in different parts of the country. The truth, however, is that most of the hospitals and clinics, except in Dhaka and some divisional towns, do not have required number of doctors, nurses and skilled health personnel. Specialised medical services are mostly available in the capital city. Media reports on shortage of doctors, nurses, technicians and medicines in district and upazila hospitals are commonplace. For example, a Bengali-language newspaper published a story on September 22, 2015 that in Panchgar sadar hospital there are eight doctors against a sanctioned strength of 36 posts and that there is no gyne consultant.
Thirdly, serious attempt is lacking to deter dropout at primary school level.
Fourthly, the implementation of MDG targets should have been incorporated in the recently introduced annual performance agreement (APA) among all ministries.
Last but not least, the non-availability of data is a hindrance in measuring the performance. It has been shown in Bangladesh Progress Report, 2015 that data were not available against a good number of targets.
The strength and weaknesses are known to the policy makers. The experience gathered during the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) can be utilised while implementing the ensuing Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be adopted by the United Nations.
The writer is an economist and columnist.
 chowdhuryjafar@ymail.com