In Wednesday’s Project Syndicate column, ‘Connecting the solutions,’ UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expressed his “greatest concern… that today’s financial crisis [might] evolve[s] into tomorrow’s human crisis.” In this context, he had four key messages for UN member states.
The world needs a global stimulus package to turn the crisis around. Financial rescue and assistance packages must include developing countries and also contribute to stimulating open trade. The international community must maintain its commitment to aid and the fulfilment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In addressing the current challenges, “inclusivity” and “reinvigorated multilateralism” are central to a successful outcome.
Mr Ban’s recommendations are eminently sensible, but we were particularly taken with his view that fulfilling the MDGs “is more than a moral imperative” and that “it is a matter of pragmatic economic necessity.”
The MDGs, it will be recalled, were launched at the Millennium Summit in September 2000. They encompass eight broad development objectives to be reached by 2015: 1) eradicating extreme poverty and hunger; 2) achieving universal primary education; 3) promoting gender equality and empowering women; 4) reducing child mortality; 5) improving maternal health; 6) combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; 7) ensuring environmental sustainability; and 8) developing a global partnership for development.
Undoubtedly, Goal 1 is the overarching objective, as achieving the others is critical to the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger. Indeed, they are all mutually reinforcing. And while the MDGs do not explicitly call for economic growth, this is obviously an essential requirement for the achievement of all the goals. Equally, the whole MDG package can be seen as a precondition for economic growth.
It was therefore appropriate that one of the early items addressed in the current UN General Assembly (GA) was the Millennium Development Goals Report 2008, a mid-term review of progress towards achieving the MDGs. It was moreover encouraging that, during the general debate at the beginning of the GA, some US$16 billion was pledged by member governments and foundations such as the Gates and Buffet Foundations.
The MDGs represent a comprehensive framework for development, premised upon a collaborative approach by governments, the private sector and civil society, Goal 8 in essence. But the pledges, welcome as they are, will have to materialize into cold, hard cash, and the global partnership will only work in so far as the financial and technical resource transfers are made to the developing world. And developing countries themselves must be willing and able to forge genuine partnerships at the national level.
At this half-way stage for the MDGs, the UN has reported progress in some sectors and lags in others. Also, there are different levels of achievement in the different regions of the developing world. Latin America and the Caribbean present a mixed picture, though it is difficult to disaggregate Caribbean performance from the overall regional scorecard presented in the UN Report. Nevertheless, the United Nations Development Programme maintains a website to track progress on a country-by-country basis.
With regard to the Caribbean, if one examines the individual MDGs and their benchmarks in a narrow sense – that is, by looking at minimum standards – one could probably argue that, all things being equal, the region is making reasonable progress towards achieving them by 2015.
However, progress everywhere is now seriously threatened by the current economic crisis, precipitated by the toxic combination of the financial meltdown, the steep rise in food prices and the volatility of the energy market, among other factors. In addition to the immediate effects of generally increasing the cost of living and of contributing to a heightened sense of uncertainty, if not insecurity in the developing world, there will undoubtedly be medium and long-term impacts, as real growth rates are negatively affected.
As Mr Ban recognizes in the Foreword to the MDG Report, “These developments will directly affect our efforts to reduce poverty” and it is the poor who will suffer disproportionately. Indeed, the World Bank has already suggested that progress to date towards reducing poverty and hunger could be severely impacted, if not wiped out altogether, by the rise in food prices alone.
In this context then, Guyana and the rest of the region clearly have a lot still to do, even to meet the minimum standards of the MDGs. Governments will need to maintain focus. And civil society can also play a useful role through advocacy and partnerships to ensure that political will is strong and that resources are allocated.
But shouldn’t we be looking also to raise the bar? Take universal primary education for example. That goal has statistically been achieved. But shouldn’t we be looking simultaneously at the quality of teaching, upgrading and modernising existing facilities to include, among others, early exposure to information and communication technologies, and ensuring that there are flush toilets and running water in all our schools?
The MDGs do leave room for raising the bar and we should not be content with simply making do with the minimum. Here in Guyana, as we strive to tackle several daunting challenges, ranging from social dislocation and rising crime rates to climate change and environmental sustainability, we would do well to determine how we might consolidate progress made thus far and accelerate towards not only attaining the MDGs by 2015, but also moving beyond the minimum standards set. There can be no room for complacency.
