Millenium Development Goals fail to address structural economic challenges.
The Minnesota Daily, 1 November 2010
It’s been 50 years since most African nations gained or began to move toward political independence in the hopes of also attaining economic freedom from their colonial masters.
Despite the continent’s political successes, sub-Saharan Africa still faces severe challenges to development. Only 31 percent of the sub-Saharan African population has access to adequate sanitation, 190,000 women die in pregnancy and childbirth annually and 388 million people live in extreme poverty.
Ten years ago, national leaders convened to combat disease, poverty and hunger in poor countries through the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.
However, it is becoming more obvious that the eight MDGs will not be achieved by 2015 as planned. And unfortunately for Africa, the continent’s underdevelopment has much to do with economic dependence.
Slogans like "End Poverty Now" have been the mantra of the initiative and this year’s U.N. summit on the goals’ progress. No doubt some progress has been made.
However, the MDGs are a quick fix to a myriad of complex problems. Underdevelopment is not going away in five years unless there is the political will to address structural economic obstacles to development.
Where the MDGs first fail is their lack of acknowledgement of the inequitable economic system.
Developed countries can afford to sell their goods on the international market cheaply because of government subsidies. But developing countries can’t afford subsidies for their farmers.
This results in distorted African markets and cheap international prices with which domestic farmers can’t compete.
Related to this is the legacy of colonialism and paternalistic policies imposed by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Such policies prevent African countries from diversifying their economies under government regulation.
This is because IMF loans impose crippling Structural Adjustment Programs: the forced deregulation of African markets and privatization of public services under the guise of holding governments accountable. SAPs have actually increased corruption and helped cause underdevelopment.
Speaking of corruption, it’s hypocritical for rich countries to deride Africa of its corrupt behavior when they encourage such corrupt activities in the continent.
A case in point is oil giant Shell, one of several multinational oil companies accused of illegally paying Nigerian officials.
If the United Nations is serious about promoting development, it needs to take into account the institutionalization of global inequality. The goals also need to acknowledge that corruption will exist so long as there are parties on both sides willing to engage in it.
And then there’s the dual problem of foreign aid and debt. Poor countries still face an estimated burden of $500 billion in foreign debt. How are they going to "end poverty now" if they don’t have the financial means to do so?
Even if rich countries cancel debt and increase foreign aid, a growing number of academics argue throwing aid at poverty’s symptoms is not doing the job. Aid has done little or nothing to ease poverty and its symptoms on the aggregate level.
"There is no simple correlation between the volume of aid and its impact," Phil Vernon from International Alert told The Independent, a British paper. "Failing to meet the goals should not be interpreted to mean we should spend more money in the same way. People were told a story in which if they opened their checkbooks they would end poverty. But ending poverty is as much about politics as about getting children into school."
The MDGs are also doomed to fail due to a lack of political will. Even if the effectiveness of aid is an open question, the fact is that rich countries have failed to contribute the amount of aid they promised over the past decade.
In 2000, the G8 pledged to spend 0.7 percent of its GDP on overseas development assistance, but so far, it has spent only 0.34 percent. The latest estimates predict a pledged $21 billion in aid has not been met so far.
The financial crisis is partly to blame, but countries lacked the political will before the recession hit. Particularly because of the crisis, Africa needs development assistance — monetary or not — now more than ever.
So what do we do? Should we throw up our arms in frustration and ignore the fate of the world’s poor in desperation?
Of course not. There is a silver lining. Combating HIV/AIDs in Africa has been increasingly successful, particularly in Ethiopia, Uganda and Rwanda. As for the MDG to improve education, 42 million additional children went to school from 1999 to 2007. In 2007, 71 percent of girls were enrolled in school, an increase from 53 percent in 1999. Africa’s markets have been growing at a rate of over 5 percent annually, and foreign investors are increasingly looking to Africa for business.
Perhaps most encouraging is President Barack Obama’s recent declaration of the new U.S. Global Development Policy, which will "harness all the tools at our disposal — from our diplomacy to our trade policies to our investment policies" to improve societies "over the long term."
There are positives in the U.N. MDGs. But if we are going to lift the bottom billion out of poverty, we need a holistic approach that empowers poor countries to address complex structural impediments and the lack of political will.
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