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[NAIROBI, 2 July 2007] - The world’s shared goals for fighting poverty and other economic and social ills remain achievable in most countries, but only if political leaders in rich and poor nations take urgent and concerted action, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today. Addressing the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) in Geneva, Mr. Ban said the mid-point progress report on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – which was released today – contained encouraging messages. “Countries in Africa and elsewhere are demonstrating that rapid and large-scale progress on the MDGs is possible,” Mr. Ban said, referring to the set of eight development objectives which world leaders have agreed to work towards by the target date of 2015. This week’s ECOSOC meeting is focusing on two of the objectives: cutting extreme poverty and hunger in half, and building the global partnership for development. The Secretary-General urged a “strong and sustained effort” towards the targets. “Advancing on these two items is essential for human uplift, and it underpins our entire UN development agenda… Needless to say, millions of lives quite literally hang in the balance.” He called on the leaders of poor States to ensure they have national development strategies in place that focus on job creation, productivity, practical steps for increasing investments in key areas and improving access to markets. But “all of this will simply not occur without adequate financing, much of which has to flow from a strengthened global partnership for development,” the Secretary-General warned, noting that progress towards the Goals has so far been too slow in some countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. Mr. Ban said wealthy nations must keep their promises to eventually spend 0.7 per cent of their gross national product (GNP) on official development assistance (ODA) to poorer countries and “address the disparities in the global trade regime which handcuff so many developing nations.” He stressed the importance of a successful conclusion to the current so-called Doha round of trade negotiations. “Existing trade barriers, agricultural subsidies and restrictive rules on intellectual property rights reinforce global inequities – and they make a mockery of our tall claims to eliminate hunger and poverty from our world.” Analysis The proportion of people living on US$1 a day or less has fallen from 45.9 percent to 41.1 percent since 1999; however, achieving the MDG target of halving the extent of extreme poverty on the continent by 2015 means the pace of reduction has to be doubled. Only five donor countries have reached or exceeded the long-standing UN target of donating 0.7 percent of gross national income being to development aid – Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. Indeed, total official development assistance fell in real terms by 5.1 percent between 2005 and 2006, the first decline since 1997, despite pledges by the G8 industrialised nations at the Gleneagles summit in 2005 to double aid to Africa by 2010. "The lack of any significant increase in official development assistance makes it impossible, even for well-governed countries, to meet the MDGs," writes Ban. "As this report makes clear, adequate resources need to be made available to countries in a predictable way for them to be able to effectively plan the scaling up of their investments." Worldwide, the proportion of people living on $1 a day has dropped from 32 percent (1.25 billion in 1990) to 19 percent (980 million in 2004). According to the report, if that trend continues, the “MDG poverty reduction target will be met for the world as a whole and for most regions”. Progress for children Other signs of progress globally are an increase in primary school enrolment – from 80 percent in 1991 to 88 percent in 2005; a greater number of women in politics and government; a decline in child mortality, mainly through interventions against measles, for example; a boost in anti-malaria measures; and progress against tuberculosis, albeit insufficient to achieve the target of halving prevalence and death rates by 2015. Asia has made dramatic progress in eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, halving the proportion of people living on $1 a day, according to the report, and is thus comfortably on track to achieving the first MDG. However, this gain comes with increased income inequality within countries and across regions. In southern Asia, almost 30 percent of people still live on $1 day while in eastern Asia the share of income of the poorest fifth of the population had fallen from 7.3 percent in 1990 to 4.5 percent in 2004. Improvements in child nutrition rates and gender equality in southern and south-eastern Asia were also poor: southern Asia shared with sub-Saharan Africa the highest number of maternal deaths and the lowest proportion of skilled health attendants at birth. Furthermore, gains made towards some MDGs in Asia would be limited by challenges in other areas, such as deforestation, unplanned urbanisation, and the fast rate of growth of HIV/AIDS in some regions, stated the report. On the positive side, northern Africa is on track to achieving most of the eight MDGs, with poverty rates down from 2.6 percent to 1.4 percent between 1990 and 2004; income inequality the lowest among all developing regions; significant gains in universal primary education, with enrolment ratios at 95 percent in 2005; and child mortality down from 88 deaths per 1,000 births in 1990 to 35 in 2005. Only gender equality and empowerment of women let the region down, the report found. Further information
pdf: http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/pdf/mdg2007.pdf