Staggered progress on millennium goals

Advances in development program to alleviate poverty, disease, unemployment and environmental harm

The Sustainable Development Committee will deliver its final report on the Millennium Development Goals at the United Nations soon. A new leaf will be turned as the General Assembly takes the discussion of global development to a new level. But first we should look at what has been accomplished over the past 13 years.

In education, developing countries have made impressive efforts in expanding access to primary education, with the adjusted net enrolment rate growing from 83 percent to 90 percent from 2000 to 2011. In this period, the number of children out of school declined by almost half (from 102 million to 57 million). However, the rate of decrease has been slowing and we are unlikely to meet the target of universal primary education by 2015.

In sub-Saharan Africa, things are particularly bleak. It is home to more than half the world's out-of-school children, although the adjusted primary net enrolment rate rose from 60 percent to 77 percent in the 11 years from 2000.

Household surveys in 63 developing countries show that poverty is the single most important factor for non-attendance.

Gender parity is closest to being achieved at primary level, but only two countries have achieved this. However, women tend to hold less secure jobs than men, with fewer social benefits. In the political field, the average share of women members in parliaments worldwide was just over 20 percent.

Reducing child mortality is one of the goals. Since 1990, the rate of mortality for children under 5 years of age has dropped 41 percent, from 87 per 1,000 to 51 in 2011. This means more than 14,000 fewer children are dying every day. In 2011, an estimated 6.9 million, or 19,000 a day, died from mostly preventable diseases. More rapid progress is needed to meet the target of reducing these deaths by two thirds.

The maternal mortality ratio fell 47 percent over the past 20 years in the world, from 400 to 210 per 100,000 live births. All regions have made progress, but meeting the Millennium Development Goals, reducing the ratio by three quarters, will require accelerated interventions, including improved access to emergency obstetric care, assistance from skilled health personnel at deliveries and providing antiretroviral therapy to all pregnant women who need it.

AIDS was first clinically observed in the US in 1981 and since then the incidence of HIV has fallen steadily in most regions. Nevertheless, 2.5 million people are newly infected each year, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. Despite overall progress, trends in some regions are worrisome. The incidence of HIV has more than doubled since 2001 in the Caucasus and Central Asia. We obviously still have a lot to do.

Forests continue to disappear at an alarming rate despite the establishment of forest policies and laws in many countries. The largest net loss of forest area is in South America (3.6 million hectares a year) and Africa (3.4 million hectares a year).

Global greenhouse gas emissions have resumed their upward path, after falling by 0.4 percent at the start of the economic crisis in 2008-09. The aim is to complete negotiations by 2015 and begin implementation in 2020 of decisive steps toward averting irreversible changes in the global climate.

Another goal is developing a global partnership for development. Last year, net official aid to developing countries fell 4 percent in real terms from 2011, which in turn was 2 percent below the 2010 level. Those declines can be attributed to budget constraints forced on governments by the financial crisis and economic turmoil in the euro zone.

The words of Wu Hongbo, undersecretary-general for economic and social affairs at the UN, are pertinent on the millennium goals: "Their successful conclusion will be an important building block for a successor development agenda. And volumes of experience and lessons learned along the way can only benefit the prospects for continued progress."

The author is vice-chairman and secretary-general of China Energy Fund Committee, a think tank on energy and China-related issues. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

(China Daily Africa Weekly 10/04/2013 page13)