Most South Asian states may miss MDG targets

from the Independent-Bangladesh

A new World Bank-IMF report on Tuesday warned that most countries in South Asia would fall short of targets fixed in line with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) — a set of eight globally agreed goals to be achieved by 2015, according to Internet.

Launched at the half way point to 2015, the Global Monitoring Report 2008 called upon the international community to help the world get back on track by recommitting to the development goals and redoubling efforts to achieve them.

Though much of the world, including South Asia, might cut extreme poverty in half by then, prospects were gravest for the goals of reducing child and maternal mortality, with serious shortfalls also likely in primary school completion, nutrition and sanitation goals.

In this year of “Action of the MDGs”, there were concerns about the risk of failing to meet the goal of reducing hunger and malnutrition, the “forgotten MDG”, the report said.

Lead author of the report, Zia Qureshi, currently senior adviser to the Office of the Chief Economist and senior vice-president of the World Bank, said: “The outlook is quite positive in poverty reduction in the South Asia region. But the region is likely to be seriously short in some areas, including primary education, gender parity and child mortality goals. “South Asia will likely not reach the goal of halving malnutrition rates.

Countries like Bangladesh, India and Pakistan also lack in human development.” Declaring low-lying Bangladesh to be hardest hit by floods and rise in sea level, the author warned that agricultural countries such as India and Pakistan were also most vulnerable to climate change.

In a comprehensive overview, the report touched upon declining aid to developing countries to meet MDGs and environmental concerns. It stressed on sustaining growth momentum which would decline from 4.9 per cent in 2007 to 3.7 per cent in 2008; 40 million more children were in school and gender disparity in primary and secondary schools had declined by 60 per cent but 75 million children remained out of schools and a third of the developing world’s population — 1.6 billion people—lacked access to modern energy and were forced to rely on carbon-emitting biomass and fossil fuel energy.

The report said that although three million more children survived and two million lives were saved by immunisation, every week 10,000 women still died from treatable complications of pregnancy and birth and over 190,000 children under five were lost to diseases.

An area of forest equivalent to the size of Panama or Sierra Leone was lost every year to land use changes, with most of the loss concentrated in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa. However, the report laid out an integrated six-point agenda, with strong inclusive growth at the top.

It called for more effective aid, strengthening programmes in health, education and nutrition and financing and technology transfers to support climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Economic strategies stressed to fight poverty in South Asia

from The Rising Nepal

Secretary General of SAARC, Lyonpo Chenkyab Dorji has stressed on the need of clear pro-poor policies and programmes, and determined efforts to ensure their implementation, both at national and regional levels.

He said this while inaugurating the Regional Brainstorm Workshop on SAARC Development Goals (SDGs) Monitoring and Evaluation organised by the SAARC Secretariat, in collaboration with UNDP, Tuesday.

Stating that poverty cannot be alleviated without the well-devised overall economic strategies, with balanced investments in human capital and social sectors, Secretary General Dorji laid stress on reducing the gap between the rich and the poor by extending resources to them.

The SAARC Member states are doing their utmost to tackle poverty at the national level, he said, adding that, SAARC has been trying to forge stronger regional determination to fight poverty and under-development.

Speaking on the occasion, Acting Residential Representative of UNDP Ghulam Isaczai informed about the role of UNDP for minimising poverty in South Asia.

The 13th SAARC Summit concluded in capital city of Bangladesh, Dhaka, had endorsed the 22-point SAARC Development Goals in the sectors like poverty alleviation, education, health and environmental protection.

The SDGs were endorsed as recommended by the SAARC Independent Commission for Poverty Alleviation.

The five year long SDGs include eradication of hunger, poverty, halving proportion of people in poverty by 2010, ensuring adequate nutrition and dietary improvement for the poor, ensuring robust pro-poor growth process, strengthening connectivity of poorer regions and of poor as social groups, reduce social and institutional vulnerabilities of the poor, women and children, ensuring effective participation of poor and of women in anti -poverty policies and programmes.

Likewise, the SDG includes acceptable levels of forest cover, water and soil quality, air quality, conservation of bio-diversity, wetland conservation, ban on dumping of hazardous waste, including radio-active waste, and maternal and child health.

Similarly, the SDG has affordable health-care, improved hygiene and public health, access to primary/community school for all children, boys and girls, completion of primary education cycle, universal functional literacy and quality education at primary, secondary and vocational levels.

The two-day seminar was participated in by economists of eight member nations.