Tracking India’s progress on MDGs

from One World

Rajender Singh Negi
OneWorld South Asia

New Delhi: Providing an overview on the achievements of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in India, a citizen’s report titled: Measuring India’s Progress on the Millennium Development Goals was released on January 7 in New Delhi by Wada Na Todo Abhiyan (WNTA).

A national initiative to hold the government accountable to its promises to end poverty, social exclusion and discrimination, the WNTA or ‘Keep Your Promises Campaign’ is a network of more than 3,000 civil society organisations spread across 23 states of India.

The report gives a focused review from the point of view of socially disadvantaged groups such as dalits, denotified tribes and Muslim minorities across 10 states. It laments that despite economic progress, India is still accounting for the highest number of maternal deaths in the world. It also regrets that the country is spending under 1% of its Gross Domestic Product on public health – which is less than even countries like Sri Lanka, Namibia, Botswana and Sierra Leone. Expenditure in education also remains minimal.

“With the growth taking place in the country unless there is a targeted expenditure, we will not be able to see the results which have been designed to be achieved as part of the MDG campaign,” warned Jagadananda, Convener of WNTA.

Releasing the report Salil Shetty, Global Director, UN Millennium Campaign, said: “The MDGs have proved useful in building the participation of classes that are otherwise distanced from the issues of poverty and exclusion.”

“Children and youth in particular are stimulated by the vision of global well-being and justice enabling the Millennium Campaign to work with civil society and faith based partners to involve more than 43.7 million people across 127 countries in an effort to remind governments of their obligation to meet and exceed the MDGs,” he added.

Union minister of Panchayati Raj, Mani Shankar Aiyer, speaking on the occasion said that much of the success of the MDGs worldwide would depend on their success in India. “If we are able to eradicate poverty from India, then wiping it out from the world will become that much easier,” he observed.

The minister also emphasised on the need to focus on institutions of inclusive governance to ensure inclusive growth and urged civil society organisations to work closely with panchayati raj institutions to achieve the goals.

Jagadananda said that there were many national level initiatives like the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, National Rural Health Mission and the recent Forest Rights Act that could play an important role in the achievement of the MDGs. Provisions for women’s reservation in Parliament, right to education and social security for the unorganised sector were needed to be taken out of cold storage and acted upon immediately.

Prof Jayati Ghosh of Jawaharlal Nehru University congratulated the WNTA for bringing out the report, saying that it was timely and necessary.

She was of the view that development project in India was nowhere near completion. “A significant portion of our population is finding it hard to access calories, making food security an important political and social issue,” she said.

She expressed her concern over the worsening gender gap. She also pointed out towards stagnation in child mortality rate since mid-1990s, after showing improvement in the decades between 1970s and early 1990s. On the issue of environmental sustainability she said that global warming was a crucial issue today and that the industrial growth in India had posed a serious problem of pollution. “We are making our cities increasingly unlivable,” she warned.

“The government must proactively engage civil society to monitor and evaluate its programmes, and promote the citizens’ right to information on all aspects of its progress,” said Jagadananda in his concluding remark.