The United Nations says despite a mixed report card on progress towards meeting the Millennium Development Goals, there is confidence that given sufficient political will, the targets can be met by the 2015 deadline.
Presenter:Sen Lam
Speaker: Kiyo Akasaka the under-secretary-general for Communications & Public Information.
AKASAKA: This year is an important year for MDGs. In September, in New York there is going to be a summit on MDGs. We are hopeful that the outcome of this conference in the debate with NGOs will be channelled into the international leaders debate in New York. So the voices of NGOs could be channelled into the debate among world leaders in September, starting on the 20th at New York.
LAM: It's been ten years of course and there have been many meetings, similar conferences have been held over the past ten years. Are we any closer to achieving the 2015 goal?
AKASAKA: Some important progress has been made, but we have only five more years to go, and depending upon the region, particular sub-Sahara, African countries, it is a tall order for many African countries to achieve the eight goals of Millennium Development Goals, particularly in the area of maternal health and child mortality and poverty reduction. But indeed progress has been made. We have got to accelerate this process of improvement of health, environment and education.
LAM: Is there a conscious move towards maternal health which you mentioned, because children cannot be protected and looked after if their mothers are not well?
AKASAKA: Exactly. About half-a-million pregnant women die unnecessarily. If they are taken care of, they would not have to die. But still quite a lot of pregnant women die because they are not cared for and you are right, if mothers are not taken care of, the children will suffer. We know that children also need a much more improved healthcare. Eight-point-eight million children die out of diarrhoea, pneumonia, malaria and HIV/Aids and most of these diseases are preventable.
LAM: Indeed, and many kids are under threat from diarrhoea even as we speak in Pakistan which has just been ravaged by horrific floodwaters. Is aid getting through to the areas of need do you think in terms of disasters?
AKASAKA: This is the source of concern for the United Nations, because in 2005, world leaders at Gleneagles, G8 summit agreed to increase aid, but there is now a gap between the committed amount and the projected delivery, about the 14 or 18 billion dollars is in short for all the official development aid as a total.
LAM; And indeed, since the MDGs were first struck in 2000, there have been many, many distractions for want of a better word, many emergencies in fact, 9/11 for instance, the war on terror, the huge tsunami in 2004, subsequent natural disasters, earthquakes, floods, you name it. Have these calamities, natural or otherwise, have they detracted from the MDG focus, do you think?
AKASAKA: Indeed, this humanitarian aid has been important. I mean currently you have to deal with Pakistan flooding the event and the victims. But for a more medium and long term development, we need more aid for education, health, environment, yes. We would like to see the world leaders living up to their commitments to increase their aid. And here I would like to point out that Australia has committed to increase its aid to per 0.5 per cent of gross national income by 2015. I commend that commitment.
LAM: Well, the world media has been less than optimistic about meeting these MDGs with just five more years to go. Give us some happy MDG stories in the region?
AKASAKA: There are a lot of the good stories, say education of children in many African countries, like Malawi or Rwanda. You see the enrolment rate has gone up to nearly 90 per cent, over 90 per cent. In this region to in Oceania we see some important developments in dealing with HIV/Aids and Tuberculosis and other health related problems.
LAM: So regional governments are rising to the challenge, do you think?
AKASAKA: I think that in this region, there are quite a number of countries, particularly in Asia. If you see the improvement in China, India, Vietnam, Cambodia, enormous progress has been made.
LAM: What about places like Bangladesh, the people are still very poor?
AKASAKA: Bangladesh have been doing I think a good effort. I see a country like Indonesia, huge number of population has been saved by the government efforts. I agree that we can make it if we still have five more years if you think about those five years as a challenge.
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