Sustainability class: The progress of the MDGs in Northern Africa

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are to be met by 2015. Let us have a look where they are today- regarding the Northern Africa region. The goals and the targets (objectives) are the following:

Goal 1
Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

Target
Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than $1 a day

Northern Africa will most likely reach the target. The proportion of people in the region living on less than $1.25 a day – the international poverty line defined by the World Bank – decreased from 5 per cent to 3 per cent between 1990 and 2005.

Target
Achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all, including women and young people

Regarding the participation of women in paid work, the situation has remained at the same very low level since 1990: fewer than one in five paid jobs outside the agriculture sector was held by women in 2009.

Target
Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people who suffer from hunger.

Goal 2
Achieve universal primary education

Target
Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling

Northern Africa leads in expanding literacy among youth, with its youth literacy rate increasing from 68 % to 87 % between 1990 and 2009. The primary school enrolment ratio grew from 86 % to 94 % between 1999 and 2009.

Goal 3
Promote gender equality and empower women

Target
Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and in all levels of education no later than 2015

Gender parity has been reached in secondary and tertiary education, and almost in primary education (with 95 girls enrolled per 100 boys in 2009). However, regarding to paid work and participation in politics it stays on a very low level (20% and 12%).

Goal 4
Reduce child mortality

Target
Reduce by two thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the underfive mortality rate

Northern Africa is the only region to have already met the child mortality target. This success is due to widespread coverage
of immunization against measles – 94 per cent of children 12-23 months old received measles vaccine in 2009 – and due to a remarkable progress in expanding access to safe water and sanitation.

Goal 5
Improve maternal health

Target
Reduce by three quarters, between 1990 and 2015, the maternal mortality ratio

Northern Africa made one of the greatest progress in reducing maternal mortality. Between 1990 and 2008, its maternal mortality ratio decreased from 230 maternal deaths to 92 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births, due to increases in skilled attendance at birth (from 45 per cent of deliveries in 1990 to 81 per cent in 2009) and contraceptive use among women of reproductive age who are married or in a union (from 44 per cent in 1990 to 61 per cent in 2008).

Target
Achieve, by 2015, universal access to reproductive health

Goal 6
Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases

Target
Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS

Target
Achieve, by 2010, universal access to treatment for HIV/AIDS for all those who need it

Target
Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the  incidence of malaria and other major diseases

No progress achieved here.

Goal 7
Ensure environmental sustainability

Target
Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes and reverse the loss of
environmental resources

Northern Africa has exceeded the limits for sustainable water resources. It had already withdrawn 92 per cent of its internal renewable water resources by around 2005.

Target
Reduce biodiversity loss, achieving, by 2010, a significant reduction in the rate of loss

Target
Halve, by 2015, the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation

The region made a remarkable progress in expanding access to safe water and sanitation.

Target
By 2020, to have achieved a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers

Goal 8
Develop a global partnership for development

Target
Address the special needs of the least developed countries, landlocked countries and small island developing states

Target
Develop further an open, rule-based, predictable, non-discriminatory trading and financial system

Target
Deal comprehensively with developing countries’ debt

Target
In cooperation with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies,
especially information and communications

To conclude is that Northern Africa keeps progressing very well on many of the MDGs compared to other regions. However, many countries in Northern Africa have been affected by  the consequences of the “Arab Spring”, which may slow down some of the development progress in the region over the next few years.

Also it could be interesting to ask the question, which MDG to choose, if we could only choose one.  This might bring us back to a more baseline question: what is development.

VIDEO: End poverty by 2015

Reference: The Millennium Development Goals Report 2011 by UN

http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/MDG2011_na_EN.pdf

Comments Off on Sustainability class: The progress of the MDGs in Northern Africa / 18 Jan 2012 por Ildiko Heim
IMSD /

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