Here’s a surprising way to achieve most of the SDGs

By Martin Lemoine 

There is one sector that contributes up to a third of gross domestic product, and is an important source of foreign currency, in many of Asia’s developing countries. It could be deployed to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

Is there a silver bullet to help countries meet all their development challenges? Unfortunately, no. The first Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) to eliminate poverty, for example, is a gigantic task that demands a vast array of interventions on multiple fronts.
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UN chief launches new initiative to back post-2015 development planning

Source: Xinhua, 10 August 2012


UN Secretary-General Ban Ki- moon on Thursday announced the Sustainable Development Solutions Network to support the work of the post-2015 development planning in order to keep the momentum of spurring global development after 2015, the deadline for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which represent eight anti-poverty targets.

The new initiative includes the recently-launched High-level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda, UN spokesman Martin Nesirky said at a daily news briefing.

Rio Summit Should Endorse Sustainable Development Goals: UN Expert

CRI.English.Com14 June 2012

The world should agree on the need for a set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and initiate the process to start developing them at the upcoming Rio summit, a UN expert told Xinhua in a recent interview.

Janos Pasztor, Executive Secretary of the UN's High-level Panel on Global Sustainability (GSP), said that governments should develop and apply a set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that can mobilize global action and help monitor progress in global sustainability.

Laos, UN Confirm Common Development Goals

Xinhua
2012-07-05

The UN and Laos government have re-affirmed their commitment to working together to boost development and cooperation by signing the UN Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) Action Plan for 2012-2015.

The UN Resident Coordinator for Laos Minh Pham and Laos Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Thongloun Sisoulith on Wednesday both signed the Action Plan at an official ceremony here.

The plan signifies the strong commitment of the UN to the Lao people and their government, and to creating a country where all people have equal access to development gains.

Ghana: Any Link Between MDGs and CSR? U.T. Bank Holds Answers

Allafrica
By Ebenezer T. Hanson, 25 June 2012

The topic above is likely to elicit this question, thus, "What has Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) got to do with Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)?" It arises as a result of not taking time to identify the strangeness in the familiarity of things. But UT Holdings and its subsidiaries such as UT Bank are demonstrating in an indisputable manner that it is possible to employ CSR as an instrument to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

SDGs will replace MDGs in 2015

Daily News:Sri Lanka's National Newspaper
Disna MUDALIGE
28 June 2012

A list of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) would replace the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from 2015, as agreed by the world representatives at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), Environment Ministry Secretary B M U D Basnayake told the Daily News yesterday. He said: "All the representatives agreed to this move and provide their contribution to develop SDGs to be implemented in both developing and developed countries.

AID POLICY: Beyond the MDGs - planning for after 2015

Source: IRIN: Humanitarian News and Analysis
May 9, 2012

LONDON, 9 May 2012 (IRIN) - Twelve years gone, and three years still to go: as the Millennium Development Goals’ (MDG) target date of 2015 gets closer, the debate is intensifying about what went right and what went wrong, and – perhaps more importantly – what kind of goals should be set for the future.

Some of the arguments were aired by an expert panel convened at Britain’s Institute of Development Studies (IDS) on 3 May. The Institute has just published a paper entitled Human Security and the Next Generation of Comprehensive Human Development Goals, which makes the case for adopting targets that are “more explicitly rights-based and participatory”, would focus more on equity and sustainability, and “insist on the centrality of employment and decent work”.

Gabriele Koehler, one of the authors, outlined an ambitious wish list for the next set of goals, integrating the much broader idea of “human security”. It would incorporate everything covered by the existing MDGs, and “we also have a much, much deeper attention to wealth and income inequalities, to social exclusion, to environmental goals… good governance is an important element… because one has to look at… governance [in] the states that we are expecting to deliver the public goods.”

Koehler would like to see the new goals being applied globally, not just to developing countries, since every country has pockets of poverty and exclusion, and she wants everyone - governments and the governed - to talk much more in terms of rights.

All this would make the new MDGs far more political than the current ones, which concentrate on uncontroversial goods, like safe motherhood and child survival, and do not open up the prospect of a government being sued if it cannot ensure a decent job and a safe environment.

But some governments are going down the road of social protection. India, for instance, has adopted the idea of a ‘right to demand work’, so state governments have to respond with an offer of one hundred days of paid employment per household, while Brazil recognises the right of citizens to a minimum standard of living.

Also on the panel was Romulo Paes de Sousa, until recently Brazil’s deputy minister of social development. He accepted that framing social goods in terms of rights was controversial, but argued that Brazil’s experience showed it was possible to change perceptions. “When I started to work with social protection in 2004, it was a big problem in Brazil and many countries,” he said.

“They think that social protection produces laziness and things like that. But it has changed. We still have that debate, but it showed that it is possible to change the perception that the public has of social programmes.”

There were calls for some of the existing goals - which are dominated by health and education, and where some targets have not been met - to be rolled over. But if the new agenda is to be wider, then some sectors may receive less attention in future

“The current, more health-focused MDGs have driven significant progress and investment in health globally,” Olga Golichenko of the International HIV/AIDS Alliance told IRIN. “The Alliance is concerned that the current health goals would be watered down to weak statements on health. We would like to see improved health outcomes of the poorest and most marginalized communities globally, through the provision of universal coverage and by implementing a rights-based approach. Those MDGs which are not achieved should not be dropped, and we need to build on the momentum and progress that has been achieved to date.”

Get involved

In the audience at IDS was Richard Carey of the Donors’ Assistance Committee (DAC), one of the architects of the Millennium Goals in 2000. “Someone somewhere has to write the first word, and it could be you,” he said, urging everyone to get involved in the debate.

Busan was a milestone in defining how a more diverse set of actors might agree on some of the nuts and bolts of delivering more effective development assistance

He described how the MDGs were put together, building on commitments made in previous UN agreements, and suggested that the Busan agreement for Engagement in Fragile States, with its commitments to inclusive political settlements and the need to address injustices, could now provide a precedent for the acceptance of a human rights and political equity agenda.

At the Fourth High-Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness in Busan, South Korea’s second city, over 80 governments and international organizations agreed on a set of peace-building and state-building goals that establish a new approach to engaging with fragile states. More than 1.5 billion people are caught in cycles of poverty and violence.

Paul Wafer, who is working on post-2015 development goals for Britain’s Department for International Development (DFID), was more doubtful about whether the Busan participants really had committed to a more political agenda, but said the process could point the way forward.

“Busan was a milestone in defining how a more diverse set of actors might agree on some of the nuts and bolts of delivering more effective development assistance. The process in Busan was interesting, in that it used a series of building blocks, creating coalitions of the willing around particular issues, and that could show a possible way forward for creating the successors to the MDGs," he told IRIN.

The time is short. Amy Pollard of the Catholic Agency For Overseas Development (CAFOD), who co-chairs the ‘Beyond 2015’ campaign, said the thousand days remaining were nothing, but at the same time warned that three years is a long time in politics. “It’s prudent to attempt to take the temperature of the political context globally, and what that might mean, [but] the context in which the post-MDGs will be negotiated doesn’t exist yet,” she noted.

“It’s 2012, and we are looking something that is going to happen as an inter-governmental process over perhaps 12 months in 2015-2016. And if there were to be a major world event, of the scale of 9/11, then that would be a game changer in terms of what might be possible.”

'Most MDGs a reality by 2015'

Dialy News: Sri Lankan's National Newspaper Since 1918

Ridma DISSANAYAKE 

Sri Lanka will be able to achieve most of its Millennium Development Goals (MDG) by 2015, Public Administration and Home Affairs Minister W D J Seneviratne said.

"Sri Lanka is on track to achieve its universal primary education target to 100 percent by 2015. Poverty level has come down from 26.1 percent to 15.2 percent. Infant and maternal mortality rates have been reduced while HIV/AIDS and Malaria have also been controlled successfully," he said.

The minister was addressing the inauguration ceremony of the Commonwealth Symposium on 'Strengthening Public Service Excellence' at the Galadari Hotel yesterday.

This is a two day symposium and jointly organised by the Public Administration and Home Affairs Ministry, Sri Lanka Institute of Development Administration (SLIDA), the Governance and Institutional Development Division (GIDD) and the Commonwealth Association for Public Administration and Management (CAPAM). Minister Seneviratne said strengthening public service excellence has become a timely need at a time when Sri Lanka is heading towards a new development era after three decades of terrorism.
"President Mahinda Rajapaksa has demonstrated great leadership by liberating the country from war and the abyss of social and economic downturn. It is now time for public administrators to become leaders of the next generation to take the country to prosperity," he said.

Seneviratne said under the Mahinda Chinthana Future Vision, the number recruited to the public service had increased by 27 percent in 2009 compared to 2004 and the total cadre increased from 842,255 in 2004 to 1,071,067 by 2009.

"Sri Lanka's public sector will also recruit 30,000 graduates to support the current development drive. These graduates will be recruited as development officers," the minister stated. Public administrators are faced with the challenge of solving problems which are becoming ever more complex in today's world.

Public service requires skilled public administrators to deal with pressing problems in the new era of the growing social and economic inequality and poverty, Minister Seneviratne said. Commonwealth Secretariat, GIDD, Thematic Programmes head Dr Joan Nwasike said strengthening public service is most important for developing countries like Sri Lanka.

She said the Commonwealth Secretariat is always ready to assist Sri Lanka.
Public Administration and Home Affairs Ministry Secretary P B Abeykoon, Commonwealth Association for Public Administration and Management Executive Director and CEO David Waung and Commonwealth Secretariat Human Resource Management and Leadership Development adviser S Omar Z Mowlana also participated.

15 Million babies born too soon

News release

WHO,2 May 2012 

1.1 Million preterm babies die every year, but with inexpensive treatment 75% could survive

2 May 2012 | New York - Each year, some 15 million babies in the world, more than one in 10 births, are born too early, according to the just released report Born too soon: the global action report on preterm birth.

More than one million of those babies die shortly after birth; countless others suffer some type of lifelong physical, neurological, or educational disability, often at great cost to families and society.

An estimated three-quarters of those preterm babies who die could survive without expensive care if a few proven and inexpensive treatments and preventions were available worldwide, according to more than 100 experts who contributed to the report, representing almost 40 UN agencies, universities, and organizations. The report explains what is known about preterm birth, its causes, and the kinds of care that are needed.
The lead authors of the report from The March of Dimes Foundation, The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health, Save the Children and The World Health Organization, offer a detailed plan for the actions needed to reduce both the death toll and the numbers of preterm births.

First-ever country figures for a large, but neglected problem

Preterm births have been an overlooked and neglected problem, world health leaders say.
“All newborns are vulnerable, but preterm babies are acutely so,” says UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who wrote the foreword to the report and considers the effort to reduce preterm births and deaths an integral part of his Global strategy for women’s and children’s health.

“Being born too soon is an unrecognized killer,” says Joy Lawn, M.D., PhD, co-editor of the report and Director, Global Evidence and Policy for Save the Children. “Preterm births account for almost half of all newborn deaths worldwide and are now the second leading cause of death in children under 5, after pneumonia.”

New figures in the report show both the magnitude of the problem and the disparities between countries. Of the 11 countries with preterm birth rates over 15%, all but 2 are in sub-Saharan Africa. Preterm births account for 11.1% of the world's live births, 60% of them in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. In the poorest countries, on average, 12% of babies are born too soon, compared to 9% in higher-income countries.

The problem of preterm births is not confined to low-income countries. The United States and Brazil both rank among the top 10 countries with the highest number of preterm births. In the United States, for example, about 12%, or more than one in nine of all births, are preterm.
The countries with the greatest numbers of preterm births are:

• India – 3 519 100
• China – 1 172 300
• Nigeria – 773 600
• Pakistan – 748 100
• Indonesia – 675 700
• United States – 517 400
• Bangladesh – 424 100
• Philippines – 348 900
• Democratic Republic of the Congo – 341 400
• Brazil – 279 300

The 10 countries with the highest rates of preterm births for every 100 births are:

• Malawi – 18.1 per 100
• Comoros – 16.7
• Congo – 16.7
• Zimbabwe – 16.6
• Equatorial Guinea – 16.5
• Mozambique – 16.4
• Gabon – 16.3
• Pakistan – 15.8
• Indonesia – 15.5
• Mauritania – 15.4

Those contrast with the 11 countries with the lowest rates of preterm births:

• Belarus – 4.1
• Ecuador – 5.1
• Latvia – 5.3
• Finland – 5.5
• Croatia – 5.5
• Samoa – 5.5
• Lithuania – 5.7
• Estonia – 5.7
• Antigua/Barbuda – 5.8
• Japan – 5.9
• Sweden – 5.9

“The numbers of preterm births are increasing. In all but 3 countries, preterm birth rates increased in the last 20 years,” says Dr. Lawn.

“Worldwide, 50 million births still happen at home and many babies die without birth or death certificates,” says Dr. Lawn.

In high-income countries, the increases in the number of preterm births are linked to the number of older women having babies, increased use of fertility drugs and resulting multiple pregnancies. In some developed countries, medically unnecessary inductions and Cesarean deliveries before full-term have also increased preterm births. In many low-income countries, the main causes of preterm births include infections, malaria, HIV, and high adolescent pregnancy rates. In rich and poor countries, many preterm births remain unexplained.

“The report also focuses on the dramatic survival gap between low-income and high-income countries for babies born before 28 weeks,” says Christopher Howson, PhD., co-editor of the report, an epidemiologist and head of Global Programs for the March of Dimes. “In low-income countries, more than 90% of extremely preterm babies die within the first few days of life, while less than 10% die in high-income countries.”

“However, this is a solvable problem,” says Dr. Howson. “A number of countries, for example, Ecuador, Botswana, Turkey, Oman and Sri Lanka have halved their neonatal deaths from preterm birth through improving care of serious complications like infections and respiratory distress. These interventions are particularly effective in preventing death in moderately preterm babies, which account for more than 80% of all preterm births.”

Wide differences within countries were found. For example, in the United States the preterm birth rate in 2009 for black Americans was as high as 17.5%, compared with 10.9% for white Americans. The age of the mother made a significant difference. In the U.S., the preterm birth rate for women aged 20 to 35 was between 11-12%; it was more than 15% for women under 17 and over 40.

Spotlighting preterm births may help many low-income countries, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa, achieve UN Millennium Development Goal 4, a two-thirds reduction in young child deaths, and Goal 5, improved maternal health, by 2015. These goals were set by the United Nations General Assembly in 2000. Nearly all high-income developed countries have already met these goals.

All preterm births are not the same

For the report, preterm was defined as 37 weeks of completed gestation or less, which is the standard WHO definition. Preterm babies are defined in 3 categories:

• late preterm - those born between 32 and 37 weeks - account for 84% of total preterm births, or 12.5 million. Most survive with supportive care;
• very preterm - those born between 28 and 32 weeks. These babies require extra supportive care. Most will survive; and
• extremely preterm - those born before 28 weeks. These babies require the most intensive, expensive care to survive. In developed countries, these babies have a 90% chance of survival, though they may suffer lifelong physical, neurological, and learning disabilities. In low-income countries, only 10% survive.

A recent March of Dimes analysis shows that, even though numbers are low, the risk of death of babies born between 37 and 39 weeks of gestation is twice as high as full term babies, or 39 weeks.
“It is important to ensure that babies get at least 39 weeks of gestation when medically possible, and to deliver this message to both providers and mothers," says Dr. Howson. “A healthy baby is worth the wait."

Inexpensive and simple techniques save lives

"People tend to associate preterm with high-cost intensive care services which would be challenging to poor countries, but a whole menu of effective, inexpensive services are available and work to save most of these lives," says Carole Presern, PhD, a midwife who has delivered babies in remote areas of Asia and is the Director of The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health.
Experts at the UN, medical institutions and field organizations say that inexpensive, proven forms of care for premature babies could save at least three quarters of these babies in the developing world. These include:

• antenatal steroid injections for mothers in premature labor, which cost US$ 1 an injection. This helps develop immature fetal lungs and prevent respiratory problems; yet, in low-income countries, they are only available and provided for 10% of those in need. This alone could save almost 400 000 lives of babies a year;
• "Kangaroo care" where the infant is held skin-to-skin on the mother's chest to keep warm. The warmth is very important for premature infants. Kangaroo care makes frequent breastfeeding easy and provides constant maternal supervision for the infant. This could save 450 000 lives a year;
• antiseptic cream to prevent birth cord infection; and
• antibiotics to prevent and fight infection, an important cause of neonatal death.

All health care providers, including physicians, nurses, and midwives, need training in basic preterm care, notes Dr. Presern who says she has seen too many situations where even the doctor doesn't seem to know what to do with a tiny infant.

Two types of preterm birth

Preterm births are divided into two categories: Those that are spontaneous from early onset of labor or premature rupture of the membranes and those that are provider-induced.

Provider-induced early deliveries may occur when the health of the mother or fetus is in jeopardy, such as in pre-eclampsia (dangerously high blood pressure in pregnancy), for convenience of the doctor, midwife or mother, or by an error in due dates. Even babies born a few weeks too soon are more likely to be re-hospitalized or to have breathing problems or other illnesses.

Prevention key to reducing premature births

A key way to reduce preterm numbers is to find ways to help all pregnancies go to full term, or 39 weeks. "Prevention will be the key, says Elizabeth Mason, M.D., Director of Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health at the World Health Organization and a major contributor to the report. “We are now looking closely at what can be done before a woman gets pregnant to help her have an optimal outcome," says Dr. Mason. “We know that poverty, women’s education, malaria and HIV all have an impact on the pregnancy and the health of the baby.”

A number of risk factors for preterm birth have been identified, including a prior history of preterm birth, underweight, obesity, diabetes, hypertension, smoking, infection, maternal age (either under 17 or over 40), genetics, multi-fetal pregnancy (twins, triplets, and higher), and pregnancies spaced too closely together.
However, little is known about the interplay of these and other environmental and social factors.
The report calls for a strong research program to identify risk factors clearly and understand how their interactions may lead to preterm birth so that more definitive ways can be found to screen and treat women at risk to prevent the problem from occurring.

Until research provides better answers, though, the report advises taking effective measures now, such as screening women for known medical conditions that could put them at risk during pregnancy, assuring good nutrition before and during pregnancy, and making sure that all women have access to good preconception and prenatal health care and receive the recommended number of visits during pregnancy.

An agenda for action

In addition to detailed recommendations about needed research, the report offers an agenda and action plan for all groups concerned with preterm birth and child health, ranging from the United Nations and governments at all levels to donor countries to global philanthropic institutions and civil society.
Some 30 groups have already committed to take part in the overall effort to reduce both the absolute numbers of preterm births and the mortality rate and to support the research agenda. These commitments are posted on the Every Woman, Every Child web site, supporting the Every Woman, Every Child effort to advance the Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health.

The extensive list of recommendations in the report includes specific actions such as addressing the missing essential medicines and equipment, training existing health staff in how to look after women in preterm labor and these vulnerable babies, increased funding for research to find new prevention solutions, and better data for accurate future counts. Efforts to increase awareness of the preterm birth issue are essential.
"This report is not the last word, but an important next step," says Dr. Howson. "Both the report and the broad international constituency behind it offer a framework and set of clear actions to help accelerate global progress on preterm birth.”

Parliaments scale up efforts on maternal and child health

In the first week in April, leaders of nearly 120 national parliaments attending a major meeting in Kampala, Uganda resolved to prioritize action and resources for improving the health of women and children.
Delegates to the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) passed a resolution calling for all member-parliaments to take all possible measures to achieve Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 4 and 5 by 2015. MDG 4 aims to reduce child deaths around the world by two-thirds by 2015; MDG 5 aims to reduce the maternal mortality ratio by three-quarters by the same year.

This is the first time that the world’s parliaments, acting through the IPU, have passed a resolution on this issue. The debate on the resolution featured interventions from more than 50 member-delegations, associate members and observers, including Nigeria, Brazil, the UK, Sweden and Indonesia.

• Preterm births per 100 births - 2010 by country
  pdf, 127kb

For more information, please contact:

Fadéla Chaib
WHO Communications Officer and Spokesperson
Telephone: +41 22 791 32 28
Mobile: +41 79 475 55 56
E-mail: chaibf@who.int

Nigeria: Why We Are Succeeding On MDGs - Presidential Aide

Source: All Africa 
By Simon Ebegbulem, 1 April 2012

 
The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Dr.Precious K. Gbeneol, has attributed the successes recorded by her office in the implementation of MDGs programs to innovations and careful adaptation of ideas to local realities. The SSAP-MDGs made the assertion during the quarterly MDGs lecture series organized by her office.

Gbeneol stated that the quarterly lecture series was part of her office's internal impact assessment efforts to reposition the office towards attaining the MDGs by the United Nations target date of 2015.

According to the SSAP, this particular lecture on the topic, "Universal Primary Education in Nigeria: Trends and Issues", will attempt to review all efforts by her office targeted at ensuring that, by 2015, children everywhere in the country, boys and girls will be able to complete a full course of primary education. She further said that the lecture will highlight some acceleration principles and options for implementing the countdown strategy which is OSSAP-MDGs' recipe for overall success.

Meanwhile, the International Colloquium on the thirty years of social services delivery in Nigeria , organized by the Department of Geography and Regional Planning, University of Benin (UNIBEN) in honour of the former Vice-Chancellor of the University, Professor Emeritus Andrew Onokerhoraye, has lamented that the nation is far from achieving the MDGs in almost every sector.

In a communiqué after the three days event, which attracted scholars and university dons from different institutions in the country, it lamented that the nation had witnessed deterioration and decline in the social services provision and delivery in the past thirty years and declared that it would be difficult for the nation to achieve the MDGs with the prevailing situation.

It noted: "There are persistent challenges of ineffective utilization of funds to achieve set goals, poor budgetary provisions and funding, appropriate and obsolete techonology among states.

"Insecurity, violent conflicts, increasing criminality and poor policing are further threatening the existing social services infrastructure. In some sectors such as tourism, there has been almost a complete breakdown".
While regretting that government has failed clearly to provide social services in terms of adequacy and quality services for the people, the communiqué also expressed doubt " about the sincerity of the emerging strategy of public-private sector partnership and the non involvement of citizens in the conception and implementation of partnership projects".

Sierra Leone: 'Country Off-Track in Achieving MDGs 4 and 5' - USAID Country Manager

Source: All Africa
By Patrick J. Kamara, 23 March 2012

Country Manager of USAID has said that while noticeable progress has been made so far by the government to improving health care in the country, Sierra Leone is yet currently "off track" in meeting the Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5 on maternal and child health.

Ms. Jean Benedict was speaking yesterday at the closing ceremony of the implementation of grants awarded to two Sierra Leonean NGOs under the West Africa Ambassador's Fund (WAAF) to implement interventions aimed at improving the health of people in deprived communities across the country.

"The maternal and child mortality figures for Sierra Leone are unacceptably high," she noted, adding that the lifetime risk of a woman dying from complications of pregnancy and child birth is one in eight.

According to Benedict, one in twelve children still die in Sierra Leone before their first birthday and that majority of these deaths are caused by preventable diseases. HIV/AIDS infection, she said, remains considerably higher especially among commercial sex workers and that the rate puts the general population at increased risk of the infection.

Further progress, according to her, is constrained by a health system struggling to cope with the country's needs and that urgent intervention is required to enable Sierra Leone improve its health situation.

Ms. Benedict quoted from a speech made by President Koroma during the state opening of parliament that: "Presently our healthcare system is caught between the structures of a government with limited resources, a people in extreme poverty, and a global recession that is limiting international support for improving access to services".

The USAID Country Manager said the United States government is committed to a strong and reproductive health partnership in Sierra Leone and that they responded to the country's health challenges by awarding two grants to partners under the Action for West Africa Regional Health Program (AWARE). The grants were awarded as part of the West Africa Ambassador's Fund (WAAF), she added.

Over the past twelve months, the WAAF grants have enabled two local organisations - Medical Research Centre (MRC) and the Agency for Community Empowerment, Participation and Transformation (ACEPT) - to implement various interventions to improve the health of the population most in need.

The grants, according to her, have contributed to significant improvements in the health and quality of life for thousands of people in rural and hard reach communities.

More information, visit:
Population, Health and Development in Ghana. Attaining the Millenium Development Goals The Millennium Development Goals Report 2011 Millennium Development Goals. Achievements and prospects of meeting the targets in Africa Tourism and Millenium Development Goals: Tourism, Local Communities and Development

MDGs at risk as aid shrinks

The Daily Star
23 March 2012
Poor aid flow remains a major hurdle in attaining the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015, said a major government report released yesterday.

Bangladesh required $78.2 billion between 2011 and 2015 for attaining all MDGs, according to the MDG Progress Report 2011. It said even though the country needs foreign assistance of $5 billion a year to achieve the targets, it is getting around $2 billion.

The report shows the official development assistance (ODA) inflow into Bangladesh has gone down significantly--from 5.6 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 1990-91 to 2.2 percent in 2009-10.
"The ODA has declined drastically despite Bangladesh's success in some MDGs," Abdur Razzaque, food and disaster management minister, said at the report unwrapping programme.

Citing the example of the agriculture ministry, he said it got 18 percent ODA a few years ago, but now gets only four percent. He urged the development partners to review their aid strategy.

Environment and Forest Minister Hasan Mahmud said though Bangladesh was missing out on economic growth due to the impact of climate change, developed countries were not releasing their promised aid.
Planning Minister AK Khandker, Health Minister AFM Ruhal Haque, members of the Planning Commission, government officials, experts and representatives of development partners also addressed the programme held at the National Economic Council in Dhaka.

"It's unfortunate that the developed countries have so far failed to provide their promised ODA to us," said AK Khandker.

The developed countries promised to give 0.7 percent of their GDP to the least developed countries (LDCs) to help them achieve the MDGs but they were seriously lagging behind.

The planning minister urged the developed countries to come forward and cooperate with the LDCs in exploiting the potential of international trade and accomplish their obligations as signatories to the MDGs.
Stefan Priesner, UNDP country director, however, blamed Bangladesh's poor implementation capacity as a major bottleneck for not getting adequate ODA. Lengthy project approval process was another reason he identified for poor foreign assistance.

Despite all the challenges, the MDG progress report hailed Bangladesh for its notable achievements in poverty reduction, schooling, gender parity in education, and infant and maternal mortality rates.

Bangladesh has done remarkably well in containing the spread and fatality of malaria and tuberculosis, and in the area of reforestation and access to drinking water.

However, the country is struggling to address nutrition and to protect wetlands and bio-diversity, adds the report.

Population, Health and Development in Ghana. Attaining the Millenium Development Goals The Millennium Development Goals Report 2011 Millennium Development Goals. Achievements and prospects of meeting the targets in Africa Tourism and Millenium Development Goals: Tourism, Local Communities and Development

Millenium Development Goals hard to achieve: UN

Source: Deccan Herald
Anil Sinha, New Delhi, Feb 17, DHNS:

 Though it has gained remarkably in spreading primary education and containing AIDS, India is unlikely to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) for reduction of hunger as well as chid mortality, says the latest United Nations report.

The Asia-Pacific Regional MDG Report 2011-12 that was released by Union Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh on Friday has pointed out that the progress towards achieving these goals are too slow to reach the target.

One-hundred-and-eighty-nine nations in the year 2000 took a pledge to free their people from extreme poverty and multiple deprivations. This aim became the eight Millennium Development Goals to be achieved by 2015. In September 2010, the world recommitted itself to accelerating progress towards these goals.

The recent report has been jointly launched by United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, the Asian Development Bank and the United Nations Development Programme.

It has categorised countries progressing towards achieving development goals as on-track countries and those not progressing in doing so as off-track countries.

India is on-track or early achiever on goals on education, forestry, containing AIDS or providing safe drinking water to its population, it is lagging behind on hunger, child mortality, and maternal mortality and expanding access to basic sanitation.

“A key failure has been to ensure that children in Asia and the Pacific are well nourished,” the report has noted.  However, unlike India, as the data provided in the report show, countries like Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Cambodia and Vietnam has made “heartening progress”.

The lack of infrastructure like roads and hospitals add to the worsening situation in maternal mortality, says the report. “Bangladesh, Nepal, India and Pakistan fall below the regression line, performing worse than might have been expected, possibly as a result of other factors  such as low health expenditures which reduce the supply of skilled birth attendants,” it points out.

The report also mentioned that countries like India show rural-urban disparities.

State of the world: U.N. poverty-reduction goals on track

Part 4 of the surprisingly upbeat state of the world: U.N. global poverty-reduction goals are met.

Source: Christian Science Monitor

By Peter Grier, Staff writer / December 26, 2011

Eleven years ago, at the Millennium Summit at United Nations headquarters in New York, the leaders of the world agreed to a plan meant to spur efforts to help the globe's poorest.

This blueprint involved a series of benchmarks – Millennium Development Goals – to measure the progress of developing nations on poverty, hunger, primary education, and so forth. The point was to rally international efforts to try to bring a better life to those who most needed it by 2015.

Well, 2015 is rapidly looming into view, insofar as development is concerned. And right now it looks as if most of the nations involved are going to reach most of the objectives.


"Two-thirds of developing countries are on track or close to meeting the Millennium Development Goals," begins the World Bank's "Global Monitoring Report 2011."

The world will easily meet the overall goal on poverty, for instance, if indeed the number of people living on less than $1.25 per day falls to the expected 883 million in 2015.

True, much of the progress against poverty stems from the economic gains of China and India, two huge capitalist economies that have grown rapidly in recent decades. But this growth wasn't foreordained, and the world should celebrate the fact that an enormous number of ordinary Chinese and Indians now can live better lives, say officials at nongovernmental development organizations.

And China and India aren't alone. Among the nations that have either halved poverty already or will do so by 2015 are Cambodia, Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, and Mauritania.

What's led these and other lower-income countries to start climbing out of the economic basement? Good policies in regard to controlling domestic government budgets and currencies, plus rising prices for the commodities on which many poorer nations depend for export earnings. Overall, 80 percent of developing nations should meet the poverty goal.

"On the whole, the fight against poverty is progressing well," says the "Global Monitoring Report 2011."
Economic growth tends to be a foundation from which progress on other measures of well-being can build. Consider hunger, for instance. It's obvious that as the world's poorest people gain more money, food is one of the first things they spend it on. Indeed, the world is on track to halve extreme hunger in many of the same places where poverty is declining. About 45 percent of developing nations have already reached this goal. And 33 percent are close.

Education is another area helped by economic progress. One of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in this area is for developing nations to provide access to primary schooling for all children who want it, boys and girls. Eighty-three percent of developing nations are either close to this benchmark or have reached it.

"Economic growth tends to affect very quickly other MDGs," says World Bank economist Delfin Go. But growth alone doesn't solve all of a poor nation's problems, he adds. In many cases, systems of aid delivery need to be improved to trigger social gains. For instance, while primary education enrollments in developing nations have climbed in recent years, learning outcomes haven't kept pace. In India, most young children are enrolled in primary school, but some 40 percent can't do simple subtraction.

And reaching the MDGs is only one step. The World Bank notes that within countries that are making progress, there remain pockets of deprivation, often concentrated among socially excluded groups.
Plus, there is a lower tier of nations that remains mired in misery. Many of these are states with ineffective or corrupt governments in sub-Saharan Africa. Poverty there has fallen since 2000, but the region as a whole is likely to miss the 2015 poverty reduction goal.

Still, at least this poorest of the world's areas appears to be moving forward. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicts that overall real gross domestic product growth in sub-Saharan Africa will reach 5.25 percent to 5.75 percent in 2011-12.

"The region is poised for continued economic expansion in the near term, provided the recent rise in financial and economic instability in major advanced economies remains contained," predicts an IMF World Economic Outlook from September.

Are Millennium Development Goals Just a First Step?

Source:Voice of America
Joe DeCapua
22 December 2011

In September 2000, the United Nations approved the Millennium Declaration. It set the stage for the Millennium Development Goals, which are due to be achieved in 2015. But have the MDGs brought meaningful results or are they just a first step?


The goals aim to reduce poverty, hunger and disease, while improving health, education, gender equality and the environment.
 
“There’s a debate that’s brewing about what happens after 2015 when these targets come to their natural end. Should there be more targets? Should you get really ambitious about ending world poverty in, say, 2030 or something like that? And we thought it might be useful to take a look at what’s actually been achieved over the last 10 years or so and ask a series of questions about the impact of the MDGs,” said  Andy Sumner has evaluated their effectiveness in his paper More Money or More Development: What Have the Millennium Development Goals Achieved?
Sumner is a fellow in vulnerability and poverty reduction at the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex.


He said, “We wanted to ask if the MDGs had changed the nature of the debate in terms of, had they shifted priorities, at least in policy discussions. We wanted to ask, had the goals led to greater mobilization of resources, so more money for development. And we wanted to see if they actually led to changes in policy and changes in outcome in terms of has poverty reduction been faster over the last 10 years compared to previous periods. Could you say that the MDGs were part of that success story?”

Toothless
That’s a lot to ask, he said, of what he calls a “legally toothless document

“Actually, the MDGs themselves, these U.N. goals, were never signed up to by heads of state. What was signed by heads of state was a declaration called the Millennium Declaration in 2000, which the targets were then drawn out of. Toothless in the sense that if they’re not met, no one’s really accountable for that. And maybe that’s a question to put forward if there’s another set of international goals on reducing poverty,” he said.

Following the declaration, many reports were issued estimating costs and proposing policy changes. Sumner said this suggested, at least, a “widespread hope that the MDGs could make a real difference in speeding development progress.”

“What we found was rather a kind of mixed picture. I think it’s fair to say the MDGs changed the nature of the debate in the sense that they made global poverty reduction something that was mentioned at many G8 summits, for example, but less so at the G20 since the financial crisis. So clearly they moved poverty reduction and social spending and health and education very much onto the center ground, where perhaps in the past, they hadn’t been quite so central, those kind of social issues,” he said.

It’s also likely,” he said, “the Millennium Development Goals led to more money being spent in terms of aid.

Differing viewpoints
But judging their effectiveness can depend on whether you take a broad or narrow view. Sumner said the original intention was that they be global goals.

“So, do you judge these things at a global level? So, for example, of the seven key U.N. poverty goals here, three of them are on track to be met and three of them are not too badly off-track. One is very off-track, maternal mortality. No one’s quite sure if the data’s meaningful. There’s a real area of contention about the data for maternal mortality. But if you judge it at country level, then things have been largely helped by massive progress in China, for example, and other large countries. It comes down to how you judge these things and of course that was never clear at the outset,” he said.

He added the goal to cut poverty in half by 2015 would suggest there’s still some unfinished business.
“What might you achieve by say 2030? We’re trying to assess what might be reasonable for 2030. And we think it’s not out of the question that certain aspects of extreme poverty could be eradicated by 2030. So the MDGs, the Millennium Development Goals, were the kind of first stage of getting halfway. And then you might want to aspire to end extreme poverty by 2030 and that might be reasonable,” he said.

Sumner said there’s a symbolic value in the world saying it cares enough about poverty to set goals to reduce it. In fact, he says, it may be one of the few areas where there’s widespread international agreement. The question now is what happens after 2015? Will updated goals be proposed to follow-up on the Millennium Development Goals.

World Toilet Day 2011: When it comes to poo, culture matters, too!

18 Nov 2011  Source: AlertNet Malteser International - Germany Cologne. Going to the toilet may seem a normal, everyday act for some, but it is a daunting task for millions of people around the world – for whom a toilet is nowhere to be found. The lack of private, clean spaces to “take care of business” is a serious problem with dire consequences for people’s health and well-being. That’s why, on the occasion of World Toilet Day, Malteser International, the Order of Malta’s relief service for humanitarian aid, calls for increasing access to sanitation that is not only adequate, but that also takes cultural aspects into consideration.   According to a 2010 WHO report, 2.6 billion people worldwide lack basic sanitation. “These people have to worry every day about how to relieve themselves without feeling ashamed”, says Arno Coerver, regional water, sanitation & hygiene (WASH) coordinator at Malteser International. “They have to wait until night-time to defecate, or hide in the bushes. Needless to say, that is not only difficult, but also dangerous – especially for women and children, or for those who are ill”. In each of its project countries, Malteser International looks for cost-efficient, technically simple and safe sanitation alternatives, which can be adjusted to meet the needs of different cultures and environments. In Myanmar, for instance, the community decided, together with the local staff, to build double-pit latrines, a type of composting toilet which uses two separate waste collection pits alternatively. “When deciding on what kind of toilet house to build, the community came up with the idea to make a light structure that can be easily shifted from one pit to the other”, Coerver says. In Cambodia, the communities supported by Malteser International were also encouraged to select and build their own latrines. “Consequently, you see a whole range of different latrines: some with brick walls and bathing facilities, others with simple cabins made of bamboo and grass”, Coerver explains. Along with building toilets and sanitation facilities, Malteser International also works to raise awareness and promote hygienic practices in the communities it works in. “Hand-washing continues to be the best, most cost-effective method to prevent diarrhoea and other infections”, says Roland Hansen, head of the Asia & Haiti department at Malteser International. Lack of sanitation and hygiene causes 2.4 million deaths annually; it kills more than 4,000 children every day, and contributes to malnutrition. The United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals call for the proportion of people who lack access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation to be halved by 2015. “Of all the Millennium Development Goals, sanitation is among the areas where the least progress has been made so far”, Hansen says. “We need to give sanitation the attention it deserves.” More information on Malteser International’s WASH programme can be found here. More information about World Toilet Day can be found at the World Toilet Organisation’s website.   Attention editors: Roland Hansen, head of the Asia & Haiti department at Malteser International, is available for interviews. Contact through Malteser International’s headquarters at +49 (0) 221 98 22-169. Malteser International is the worldwide relief agency of the Sovereign Order of Malta for humanitarian aid. The organisation provides aid in about 100 projects in more than 20 countries without distinction of religion, race or political persuasion. Christian values and the humanitarian principles of impartiality and independence are the foundation of its work. For further information: www.malteser-international.org and www.orderofmalta.int

Social Protection Programs Key to Meet MDGs in Africa Says New Report

Source: NewBusinessEthiopia.com

Sunday, 09 October 2011  

National schemes, such as pensions, safety nets and school feeding programs, can impact positively on several Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by addressing the immediate needs of the most vulnerable.
According to “Assessing Progress in Africa toward the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)”, a region-specific report released over the weekend, these programs will provide the very poor with labor market skills and safeguards against relapses into poverty.

“African countries should enhance the strength and resilience of their poor populations through targeted social safeguards. We urge policy-makers to recalibrate their social protection programs, so that they are perceived not as handouts but rather as measures to strengthen productive assets,” said the authors of the foreword to the report.

This year’s annual report shows that such policies will help in the region’s steady progress on some of the MDGs, eight internationally-agreed targets to reduce poverty, hunger, maternal and child deaths, disease, gender inequality and environmental degradation by 2015.

The document lays out a number of success stories in the area of policy, including Algeria's social protection scheme that contributed to reducing unemployment from 30 to 10 percent between 2000 and 2009, and Ethiopia’s 2005-2008 public works projects that led to construction of nearly 4,500 rural classrooms and improved food security for 7.8 million citizens.

Ghana's National Health Insurance Scheme, covering 67 percent of the population, cut out-of-pocket expenditure for health by 50 percent. In Malawi, agricultural subsidies and outreach services resulted in an increase in the number of food-secure households, from 67 to 99 percent between 2005 and 2009.

Such schemes provide immediate protection for the poor while also making a longer term contribution to creating dynamic economies and more resilient societies, according to the report published by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the African Union Commission (AUC).

“Africa has made steady progress on a number of targets Thanks to policy innovations and social protection schemes,” says the report. For example, it increased primary school enrolment rates from 65 to 83 percent between 1999 and 2008.

In addition, 80 percent of the 36 African countries that have data for 1990 to 2010 increased the number of women in parliament during that period; and HIV/AIDS prevalence rates have dropped from just under six percent in 2001 to five percent in 2009.

However, while all regions of the world made progress on reducing maternal mortality, Africa faces a formidable task on this indicator, with several countries showing averages of 1,000 deaths per 100,000.

In addition, although the population with access to safe drinking water increased from 56 to 65 percent between 1990 and 2008, the rate of progress is insufficient for the continent to reach the 2015 MDG target of reducing by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water.

Progress on some of the MDGs may have stalled or been reversed by the impact of the global economic crisis on Sub-Saharan Africa where the proportion of those earning less than 1.25 UD dollars a day decreased from 67 to 58 percent between 1998 and 2008.

More than 20 percent of young people in North Africa, for example, remained unemployed in 2008, while more than 75 percent of the labor force in Sub-Saharan Africa had vulnerable jobs in 2009, according to the report.

USAid and DfID: two peas in the same development pod?

Source:guardian.co.uk  

Liz Ford Monday 26 September 2011 

They co-host events, love results, and adopt similar methods. Do the US and UK development arms enjoy a 'special relationship'?

DfID's Andrew Mitchell confers with US secretary of state Hillary Clinton at the UN. The UK and US have a similar approach to development. Photograph: David Karp/AP

Rajiv Shah, the head of the US international development agency USAid, and the UK's international development secretary, Andrew Mitchell, were in New York last week to celebrate success.

As part of their UN general assembly agenda, the pair co-hosted an event to showcase the ideas that are driving progress towards the millennium development goals (MDGs). Development programmes in Peru, Brazil, Nepal, Zambia and Gambia were among those singled out for praise.

In Brazil, the Bolsa Familia scheme, which provides conditional cash grants to mothers, has helped reduce the poverty rate from 42.7% to 28.8% since 2003. Meanwhile, focused attention on increasing access to school through the introduction of bursaries and awareness campaigns in Zambia has raised enrolment rates. In Gambia, investment in primary and secondary education has led to gender parity not only in primary school, but also in the first few years of secondary schooling. And Peru's improvements in healthcare and nutrition have substantially cut child deaths.

Speaking to the Guardian ahead of the event, Mitchell stressed the need for the world to focus on what can be achieved before the MDG 2015 deadline, rather than spending too much time considering what might come after.

"What we are trying to do is to focus in on each of the eight MDGs and underline and evaluate what works. I'm always nervous about people doing work on what could come after the MDGs, because we need everyone to focus on the last four years and get as far as we can," he said. He then added that the UK's Department for International Development (DfID) is doing a "huge amount of work" to formulate post-2015 plans that will be "strongly pursuing results".

"Results" is a word that comes up a lot when you speak to Mitchell and Shah.
"The [MDG] event really came out of discussions we had a little bit less than a year ago about results-orientated development," said Shah last week. "We wanted to highlight and recognise those places that have taken that results approach and successfully delivered."

"Each case study highlights that significant measurable documented results can be achieved against the MDGs."

It's perhaps not surprising that talk of results is such a big thing for USAid and DfID. Both departments are having to justify aid spending during the worst economic crisis since 1929. Both agree that showing taxpayers aid works is important.

Over the past 18 months, the US and the UK have been treading very similar development policy paths. As well as results, both talk about the important role to be played by the private sector, and by science and technology, in bringing about development. And both pepper speeches and announcements with mentions of national interests, security and power. The opening line of the executive summary in the USAid policy framework for 2011 to 2015, published earlier this month, provides a clear example. "International development co-operation is a key component of American power, along with diplomacy and defense," it reads.

This like-mindedness "helps us work together ever more efficiently and effectively", said Shah. "I see that [USAid work] as very consistent with what Andrew Mitchell is doing in the UK and other European countries," he added.

So much so that, according to the Washington Post, Mitchell spent time in Washington last week to bolster Shah's campaign against cuts. The Post reported that Mitchell was in town to persuade Republicans that cutting aid was not the conservative way of doing things.

Last Thursday, President Barack Obama spoke of the "special relationship" between the US and the UK and between him and Britain's prime minister, David Cameron. Could there be a similar bond developing between Mitchell and Shah and their two departments? It seems not. Although "very close to the US", the UK is "very close to a lot of different countries", said Mitchell, who is off to China shortly to explore opportunities. "We are getting increasingly close to China." Britain's "centre right development policy" is "winning support all over the world," he added.

Millennium Development Goals prove too ambitious

Sources: BBC, The Lancet, 
22 September 2011

Just nine of 137 developing countries are set to achieve Millennium Development Goals (MDG) 4 & 5 on improving child and maternal health, say experts.

A report published in the Lancet predicts that no country in sub-Saharan Africa will meet the goals by 2015, and 23 countries in the region currently look unlikely to achieve MDG4 before 2040.  MDG4 aims to reduce the death rate for children aged under five by two-thirds between 1990 and 2015. MDG5 aims to cut deaths among pregnant women and new mothers by three-quarters during the same timescale.   However, the researchers note that annual infant deaths around the world have dropped from 11.6 million in 1990 to about 7.2 million. They argue that while many aspects of health systems ‘limit the scale-up of child and maternal interventions’, some intervention strategies, for example vaccination and vitamin A supplementation, can be delivered even in health systems with very restricted capacities.   China, Rwanda and Botswana were praised for ‘substantial acceleration’ in tackling child mortality in the past decade. Countries making slower progress on the infant death target include Nigeria and Ethiopia.

UN praises VN’s successful MDGs implementation

Source:saigon-gpdaily.com.vn

Friday, Sep 23, 2011

The UN highly values Vietnam ’s success in implementing millennium development goals (MDGs) as well as its effective participation in the “One-UN” initiative in the country. UN Development Programme (UNDP) leader Helen Clark made the praise at a high-level meeting on commitment to accelerating the implementation of MDGs, held in New York on Sept. 21 on the sidelines of the 66 th session of the UN General Assembly. The event was jointly organised by the UNDP, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Bank (WB) and the Japanese Government. Speaking at the meeting, Ambassador Bui The Giang, Deputy Permanent Representative of Vietnam to the UN, reported that Vietnam has recorded remarkable achievements in implementing the MDGs adopted by the UN Summit in 2000 thanks to its high economic growth rate and successful implementation of socio-economic policies. The UN and international community have recognised Vietnam as one of the Asia-Pacific countries successfully implementing MDGs, he noted. “ Vietnam is now able to say that it has fulfilled five out of eight MDGs ahead of schedule and is speeding up the implementation of the remaining goals in order to fulfil them on schedule in 2015,” Giang stressed. According to the Vietnamese diplomat, Vietnam has faced numerous challenges during its MDGs implementation as it has to ensure the all-nation implementation of the goals, bringing benefits to all people strata, overcome difficulties derived from the global economic and financial crisis and deal with climate change consequences and protectionism. To surmount these challenges, Vietnam will make stronger efforts to better integrate MDGs into the country’s socio-economic development plans, programmes and strategies in all aspects, he said. Therefore, the country wishes to receive continued support and assistance from the UN, international organisations and donors to successfully implement MDGs, he added. Ambassador Giang also affirmed that in the context of difficulties in realising MDGs in many regions throughout the world, Vietnam fully supports the UN’s view to continue considering the MDGs implementation one of its highest priorities.