Some observations about MDGs
Saturday, 4 August 2007
Kazi Abubakar Siddique
THE pathetic and heart-rendering incident of Dipali's unexpected suicide or thousands of people around the world gleaning food from dustbin just to survive -- all these are very frequent phenomenon in the very Third World developing and least developed countries and are the true exposition of poverty which has been a crisis and worth-discussing contemporary global issue. Virtually, after the two devastating World Wars and during the period of industrialisation, human civilisation had to encounter this social predicament and later due to several unavoidable reasons it started to turn acute, causing a sort of blight in the socio-economic sphere in not only the so-called Third World or poor countries but also the developed and rich states as well.
However, in this century this problem has been a global challenge. This has been observed and is a matter of concern for not only the affected least development countries (LDCs) but also international community. Consequently, there has been a mounting concern over this problem in order to eliminate its level to an optimum level. This is because it directly hampers the national economy and slows down the development process. If we look at the Third World and developing countries in Asia and Africa, it is common that employment crisis, unproductive labour and many other reasons are working behind poverty.
However, under such alarming circumstances, this issue flashes through the mind of international community, highlighting the importance of pro-active public policy actions to reduce poverty from the world. As a consequence, in September 2000, at the United Nations Millennium Summit, the world leaders agreed on eight specific and measurable development goals-now called the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) -- to be achieved by 2015. According to the Secretary-General of UN, Kofi A. Annan:
"We will have time to reach the Millennium Development Goals - worldwide and in most, or even all, individual countries - but only if we break with business as usual. We cannot win overnight. Success will require sustained action across the entire decade between now and the deadline. It takes time to train the teachers, nurses and engineers ; to build the roads, schools and hospitals; to grow the small and large businesses able to create the jobs and income needed. So we must start now. And we must more than double global development assistance over the next few years. Nothing less will help to achieve the Goals."
The determination was to promote a development tempo and accordingly reduce poverty through some realistic and participatory initiatives. To implement these strategies, several international and developing organisations like the World Bank (WB), International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Asian Development Bank (ADB) are committed to working with the domestic authorities and assist them to a maximum level.
In fact, there must be an appropriate adjustment between policy making and its implementation centering the MDGs.. According to the UN, if it is implemented through some proper initiatives, the MDGs will be the safeguard to reduce poverty. On the other hand, the UN is at the same time committed to giving all the logistic supports to the needy countries. Now let us have a glance at the epoch-making MDGs that can be listed and enumerated as follows:
1) Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger: Reduce by half the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day and who suffer from hunger.
2) Achieve universal primary education: Ensure all boys and girls complete a full course of primary schooling and broaden the range of scholarship.
3) Promote gender equality and empower women: Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005 and at all levels by 2015 ; and empower women at both administrative and judicial levels.
4) Reduce child mortality: Reduce by two thirds the mortality rate among children under five.
5) Improve maternal health: Reduce by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio.
6) Combat HIV/ AIDS malaria and other serious diseases: initiative to halt and reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS and the incidence of malaria and other major diseases.
7) Ensure environmental sustainability: Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes; reverse loss of environmental resources. Reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and achieve significant improvement in the conditions of living for, at least 100 million slum dwellers, by 2020.
8) Develop a global partnership for development: Develop further an open trading and financial system that is rule-based, predictable and non-discriminatory and include a commitment to good governance, development and poverty reduction- nationally and internationally. Address the least developed countries' special needs. This includes tariff- and quota-free access for their exports; enhanced debt relief for heavily indebted poor countries; cancellation of official bilateral debt; and more generous official development assistance for countries committed to poverty reduction.
The world economy has grown steadily in recent decades, bringing about widespread prosperity and lifting many millions out of poverty, especially in Asia. Nevertheless, in the next 25 years, the world's population is projected to grow by about 2.0 billion people, most of whom will be born in developing and emerging market economies. Without concerted efforts by countries to help themselves through sound policies and by the development community to increase its support for the poverty-afflicted countries' own efforts, many of these people will be doomed to poverty. Consequently, the world economy will be at stake as well. So, the IMF provides low-income countries with policy advice, technical assistance, and financial support. Low-income countries receive more than half of the technical assistance provided by the Fund, and financial support is extended at low interest rates and over relatively long time horizons.
Low-income countries with high external debt burdens are also eligible for debt relief. However, in Bangladesh, beside these initiatives, some more steps are to be taken immediately to achieve such a massive challenge.
The PRSP approach, initiated by the IMF and the World Bank in 1999, has resulted in a comprehensive country-based strategy for poverty reduction. The main idea of PRSP is that it usually finds out the causes behind poverty, sorts out the hindrances to achieve the goals thereof and suggests the effectual way to implement the strategies.
Enlarge banking facility and the scope of micro-credit: As production, distribution, marketing and, at last, even consumption are related measures for financing facilities, and reducing poverty, credit facilities must be available and, of course, flexible as well. Apart from that, as it is a long term strategy, in the national budget there must be considerable and sufficient allocation to the areas that deserve a focused attention for alleviating poverty. Lastly, as micro-credit approach of the Grameen Bank has achieved an epoch-making success, it enlargement of the scope of this facility is needed.
Human recourse development: Unskilled labour does not contribute much towards the development process of a country. If a huge proportion of working force remains unskilled, the GDP and GNP will remain low and consequently the national economy will not benefit to a considerable state. If we want to ensure that effective participatory role in our economy, there is no alternative to making them trained and skilled as well. Several training programmes and workshops can be arranged in order to enhance the productivity and potentiality of such unskilled human resources. Besides, we have to consider and ensure the engagement and contribution of the tribal population to the development process.
Ensure good governance: In every country, specially in the LDCs and developing ones, good governance is the prerequisite to accelerating the pace of development activities that are supportive of poverty alleviation efforts. Domestic and foreign investments which are the source of employment and such investments can be attracted only when there is good governance. To ensure good governance we have to have a corruption- and political violence-free environment. Therefore, for sustainable economic development, we have to establish good governance to ensure a friendly and congenial investment environment.
Strengthen local government and infrastructural development: Without having a sound infrastructural support in the rural areas, poverty can never be reduced within the desired period. Because of this vulnerable condition, production, marketing and distribution are constantly hampered. To bring about a radical change in rural socio-economic setting, infrastructural support is immediately needed. Roads, bridges, culverts, village markets and storehouses are indispensable to ensure the rural development and hasten the process for achieving the goal.
Development of agro-based industry: As the economy of Bangladesh is largely dependent on agriculture, we have to give a proper emphasis on this sector with great care. Eighty per cent of our farmers are using traditional equipment for their cultivation and do experience inadequate supplies of fuel, fertiliser and seed. Under such circumstances, how will our agriculture sector contribute towards the national economy? The modern equipments are needed in our agricultural sector to help increase national production. Besides, the supply of quality seed, power and fertiliser must be ensured. Besides, in an agro-based country like Bangladesh, there must be good communication network to accelerate this phase.
Eliminate gender discrimination and empower women: What Maguier opines, "women should be integrated into development in order to increase both their potential and actual contribution to society." As poverty reduction involves a long-term and comprehensive strategy, we must empower them at both administrative and other levels and ensure their active involvement in development process with a great concern. To do so, we have to increase the rate of female education and provide them a congenial environment to participate in efforts to address this massive challenge and support and ensure their involvement in related areas.
Usages of modern technology: Whereas the developed countries are getting the advantages of modern technology in every sphere of life, we are still far from reaping the benefits of technological advancements. To help accelerate and gear up our development tempo, we immediately need to introduce modern technology in several spheres of life such as administration, agriculture, health, education and the like.
Others: Besides these afore-mentioned proposals we have to consider some other relevant factors like generation of adequate employment opportunities, supplies of the required amount of electricity, proper logistic support, uninterrupted implementation of policy, proper monitoring and so on.
No doubt, if these substantial and important proposals are implemented and taken into consideration with a great care while stepping up efforts for poverty alleviation, the objective of MDGs will obviously be achieved. And then, the MDGs can bring about desirable success to eliminate poverty within the stipulated period. Therefore, to face this huge challenge, the government has to extensively take care of the issues concerned with a great deal of determination.
The writer is in the Department of English, BUBT, Mirpur, Dhaka
THE pathetic and heart-rendering incident of Dipali's unexpected suicide or thousands of people around the world gleaning food from dustbin just to survive -- all these are very frequent phenomenon in the very Third World developing and least developed countries and are the true exposition of poverty which has been a crisis and worth-discussing contemporary global issue. Virtually, after the two devastating World Wars and during the period of industrialisation, human civilisation had to encounter this social predicament and later due to several unavoidable reasons it started to turn acute, causing a sort of blight in the socio-economic sphere in not only the so-called Third World or poor countries but also the developed and rich states as well.
However, in this century this problem has been a global challenge. This has been observed and is a matter of concern for not only the affected least development countries (LDCs) but also international community. Consequently, there has been a mounting concern over this problem in order to eliminate its level to an optimum level. This is because it directly hampers the national economy and slows down the development process. If we look at the Third World and developing countries in Asia and Africa, it is common that employment crisis, unproductive labour and many other reasons are working behind poverty.
However, under such alarming circumstances, this issue flashes through the mind of international community, highlighting the importance of pro-active public policy actions to reduce poverty from the world. As a consequence, in September 2000, at the United Nations Millennium Summit, the world leaders agreed on eight specific and measurable development goals-now called the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) -- to be achieved by 2015. According to the Secretary-General of UN, Kofi A. Annan:
"We will have time to reach the Millennium Development Goals - worldwide and in most, or even all, individual countries - but only if we break with business as usual. We cannot win overnight. Success will require sustained action across the entire decade between now and the deadline. It takes time to train the teachers, nurses and engineers ; to build the roads, schools and hospitals; to grow the small and large businesses able to create the jobs and income needed. So we must start now. And we must more than double global development assistance over the next few years. Nothing less will help to achieve the Goals."
The determination was to promote a development tempo and accordingly reduce poverty through some realistic and participatory initiatives. To implement these strategies, several international and developing organisations like the World Bank (WB), International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Asian Development Bank (ADB) are committed to working with the domestic authorities and assist them to a maximum level.
In fact, there must be an appropriate adjustment between policy making and its implementation centering the MDGs.. According to the UN, if it is implemented through some proper initiatives, the MDGs will be the safeguard to reduce poverty. On the other hand, the UN is at the same time committed to giving all the logistic supports to the needy countries. Now let us have a glance at the epoch-making MDGs that can be listed and enumerated as follows:
1) Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger: Reduce by half the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day and who suffer from hunger.
2) Achieve universal primary education: Ensure all boys and girls complete a full course of primary schooling and broaden the range of scholarship.
3) Promote gender equality and empower women: Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005 and at all levels by 2015 ; and empower women at both administrative and judicial levels.
4) Reduce child mortality: Reduce by two thirds the mortality rate among children under five.
5) Improve maternal health: Reduce by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio.
6) Combat HIV/ AIDS malaria and other serious diseases: initiative to halt and reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS and the incidence of malaria and other major diseases.
7) Ensure environmental sustainability: Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes; reverse loss of environmental resources. Reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and achieve significant improvement in the conditions of living for, at least 100 million slum dwellers, by 2020.
8) Develop a global partnership for development: Develop further an open trading and financial system that is rule-based, predictable and non-discriminatory and include a commitment to good governance, development and poverty reduction- nationally and internationally. Address the least developed countries' special needs. This includes tariff- and quota-free access for their exports; enhanced debt relief for heavily indebted poor countries; cancellation of official bilateral debt; and more generous official development assistance for countries committed to poverty reduction.
The world economy has grown steadily in recent decades, bringing about widespread prosperity and lifting many millions out of poverty, especially in Asia. Nevertheless, in the next 25 years, the world's population is projected to grow by about 2.0 billion people, most of whom will be born in developing and emerging market economies. Without concerted efforts by countries to help themselves through sound policies and by the development community to increase its support for the poverty-afflicted countries' own efforts, many of these people will be doomed to poverty. Consequently, the world economy will be at stake as well. So, the IMF provides low-income countries with policy advice, technical assistance, and financial support. Low-income countries receive more than half of the technical assistance provided by the Fund, and financial support is extended at low interest rates and over relatively long time horizons.
Low-income countries with high external debt burdens are also eligible for debt relief. However, in Bangladesh, beside these initiatives, some more steps are to be taken immediately to achieve such a massive challenge.
The PRSP approach, initiated by the IMF and the World Bank in 1999, has resulted in a comprehensive country-based strategy for poverty reduction. The main idea of PRSP is that it usually finds out the causes behind poverty, sorts out the hindrances to achieve the goals thereof and suggests the effectual way to implement the strategies.
Enlarge banking facility and the scope of micro-credit: As production, distribution, marketing and, at last, even consumption are related measures for financing facilities, and reducing poverty, credit facilities must be available and, of course, flexible as well. Apart from that, as it is a long term strategy, in the national budget there must be considerable and sufficient allocation to the areas that deserve a focused attention for alleviating poverty. Lastly, as micro-credit approach of the Grameen Bank has achieved an epoch-making success, it enlargement of the scope of this facility is needed.
Human recourse development: Unskilled labour does not contribute much towards the development process of a country. If a huge proportion of working force remains unskilled, the GDP and GNP will remain low and consequently the national economy will not benefit to a considerable state. If we want to ensure that effective participatory role in our economy, there is no alternative to making them trained and skilled as well. Several training programmes and workshops can be arranged in order to enhance the productivity and potentiality of such unskilled human resources. Besides, we have to consider and ensure the engagement and contribution of the tribal population to the development process.
Ensure good governance: In every country, specially in the LDCs and developing ones, good governance is the prerequisite to accelerating the pace of development activities that are supportive of poverty alleviation efforts. Domestic and foreign investments which are the source of employment and such investments can be attracted only when there is good governance. To ensure good governance we have to have a corruption- and political violence-free environment. Therefore, for sustainable economic development, we have to establish good governance to ensure a friendly and congenial investment environment.
Strengthen local government and infrastructural development: Without having a sound infrastructural support in the rural areas, poverty can never be reduced within the desired period. Because of this vulnerable condition, production, marketing and distribution are constantly hampered. To bring about a radical change in rural socio-economic setting, infrastructural support is immediately needed. Roads, bridges, culverts, village markets and storehouses are indispensable to ensure the rural development and hasten the process for achieving the goal.
Development of agro-based industry: As the economy of Bangladesh is largely dependent on agriculture, we have to give a proper emphasis on this sector with great care. Eighty per cent of our farmers are using traditional equipment for their cultivation and do experience inadequate supplies of fuel, fertiliser and seed. Under such circumstances, how will our agriculture sector contribute towards the national economy? The modern equipments are needed in our agricultural sector to help increase national production. Besides, the supply of quality seed, power and fertiliser must be ensured. Besides, in an agro-based country like Bangladesh, there must be good communication network to accelerate this phase.
Eliminate gender discrimination and empower women: What Maguier opines, "women should be integrated into development in order to increase both their potential and actual contribution to society." As poverty reduction involves a long-term and comprehensive strategy, we must empower them at both administrative and other levels and ensure their active involvement in development process with a great concern. To do so, we have to increase the rate of female education and provide them a congenial environment to participate in efforts to address this massive challenge and support and ensure their involvement in related areas.
Usages of modern technology: Whereas the developed countries are getting the advantages of modern technology in every sphere of life, we are still far from reaping the benefits of technological advancements. To help accelerate and gear up our development tempo, we immediately need to introduce modern technology in several spheres of life such as administration, agriculture, health, education and the like.
Others: Besides these afore-mentioned proposals we have to consider some other relevant factors like generation of adequate employment opportunities, supplies of the required amount of electricity, proper logistic support, uninterrupted implementation of policy, proper monitoring and so on.
No doubt, if these substantial and important proposals are implemented and taken into consideration with a great care while stepping up efforts for poverty alleviation, the objective of MDGs will obviously be achieved. And then, the MDGs can bring about desirable success to eliminate poverty within the stipulated period. Therefore, to face this huge challenge, the government has to extensively take care of the issues concerned with a great deal of determination.
The writer is in the Department of English, BUBT, Mirpur, Dhaka