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 The United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Report 2010, launched last week, estimates that global poverty rates will fall by half in the next five years compared to 1990, despite the effects of the global financial crisis. This would mean the removal from poverty of 920 million people who are now living under the international poverty line. So far, the greatest gains in poverty reduction since 1990 have been made in the expanding economies of India, China and other East Asian countries, while Sub Saharan Africa has been left behind; only half of African countries are on track to meet the target of halving poverty by 2015.
“Economic growth has been robust enough to guarantee that all regions remain on track to meet the poverty target,” said Francesca Perucci, chief of the U.N.'s Statistics Planning and Development Section.
Perucci noted that the fastest progress in achieving the MDGs so far has been has towards goals that do not require major infrastructural changes, such as Goal 6, combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; in contrast, goals which require deeper societal changes such as the empowerment of women have proven more difficult to achieve.
“The good news is that countries as poor and diverse as Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Malawi, Nepal and Tanzania have all experienced surges in primary school enrolment after the elimination of user fees,” said Olav Kjorven, assistant administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
“This study decisively establishes with hard evidence that much of the negative reporting on progress on the Millennium Development Goals is misleading,” said Salil Shetty, Director of the United Nations Millennium Campaign. “Instead of lamenting that Africa might miss the MDG targets, we should be celebrating the real changes that have happened in the lives of millions of poor people, not least because of the unified effort between governments and citizens, supported by donors. The leaders and tax-payers of G-8 countries must now keep their aid commitments, with the confidence that their investment is making a tangible and large scale difference.”
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