New AIDS cases worldwide still too high says ONE

The ONE organization has released a new study that looks into new AIDS cases worldwide. The charity says that new cases of AIDS are still to high to meet the Millennium Development Goal of 2015. The study says that there were 2.5 million new cases of AIDS in 2011. That is more than double the amount needed to meet the MDG.

From Reuters Alert Net, writer Anna Yukhananov gives us more on the study's content.

Progress over the past decade has cut the death toll for the disease, mainly due to better access to drugs that can both treat and prevent the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) which causes AIDS, the United Nations said in its annual report last week.

But while access to treatment has improved, in 2011 there were 2.5 million new cases of HIV. That is more than double the target of having only 1.1 million people newly infected each year, said ONE, a charity co-founded by Irish rock star Bono, that is dedicated to fighting poverty and preventable disease.

There were 34 million people living with AIDS at the end of last year.

At current rates, the world will not reach targets to reverse the spread of AIDS until 2022, seven years behind schedule, according to ONE.

"We recognize the world has done wonders in (fighting AIDS) in the last 10 years. But 2015 is around the corner," said Michael Elliott, ONE's chief executive.

"Here's a moment to put your pedal to the metal and go for it."

Much of the gap is due to funding cuts in major donor countries. The UN estimates there is about a $6 billion AIDS funding gap each year. Countries also have not coordinated a global strategy to tackle the AIDS epidemic, such as targeting treatment to groups at highest risk.

26 countries meet today to determine next development goal

UK Prime Minister David Cameron is in charge of setting up the next big development goal for the United Nations. Cameron is hosting a meeting today with politicians around the world to discuss what to do after the year 2015. That is the year the U.N's Millennium Development Goals expire. Some of the goals such as decreasing poverty have been met, others such as sanitation and education have not.

From the BBC, we read more details about today's meeting. 

He is co-chairing the first meeting of a United Nations panel, along with the presidents of Indonesia and Liberia.

Mr Cameron has been asked by the UN to look into how poverty in developing countries should be tackled after the year 2015.

Thursday's meeting, the first of a series, will be attended by 26 members.

The panel will meet again in Monrovia and Jakarta next year, before reporting to the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon.

Most of the other attendees of the London gathering are ministers from foreign governments or heads of economic committees.

The president of Indonesia, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, is currently on a three-day state visit to Britain, staying at Buckingham Palace. The other co-chair is Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia.

Millennium Development Goal of cutting hunger in half within reach

A new report from the United Nations says the Millennium Development Goal to halve hunger by 2015 is within reach. The U. N. says that the percentage of hungry people in the world was at 23 percent in 1990. The percentage is now down to 15 percent, for a total of 870 million people. The figures come from the new State of Food Insecurity report from the U. N.s Food and Agriculture Organization.

Reporter Claire Provost of the Guardian breaks down more figures from the report. 

"The good news … is the hunger target of MDG one is achievable," said Jomo Kwame Sundaram, assistant director general for economic and social development at the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). "There has been more progress than previously thought, and we're within striking distance."

Significantly, the figures do not show an increase in global hunger following the recent food price and economic crises. However, the report finds that from 2007 there has been "a significant slowdown" in progress, bringing hunger reduction "essentially to a halt for the developing countries as a whole". This will need to be reversed if the MDG is to be met, it says.

Tempering premature celebrations further, the report says the number of hungry people in the world "remains unacceptably high".

There are stark variations between regions. The figures put Asia and the Pacific, as well as Latin America and the Caribbean, almost on track for achieving their MDG hunger targets. Undernourishment in sub-Saharan Africa has improved less rapidly, and western Asia has seen an increase in the percentage of hungry people.

The report, launched by three UN food agencies ahead of the Committee on World Food Security meetings in Rome next week, calls for investment in smallholder farmers, "nutrition-sensitive" policies, and the creation of comprehensive social protection systems that target the poor.

Ban Ki-Moon asks for more aid dollars, again

Once again the pleading for more development assistance from rich contires is being heard, this time U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. Rich nations have over and over again failed to live up to their promises of more development dollars to poor nations. The recent global recession only made matters worse, as rich nations were forced to cut back on the money they give.

At the U.N. general assembly meetings, Moon says that the aid cuts could prevent some of the Millenium Development Goals from being reached. With the target year for the goals being 2015, aid dollars need to increase by almost double to make sure they are all met in time.

From the Washington Post, we hear more about the shortfalls in aid.  

The report said official development assistance in 2011 fell to $133 billion, less than half the $300 billion needed annually to meet the goals set by world leaders in 2000.

The secretary-general urged donor nations to step up their international aid and fill the $167 billion gap.

“It is clear that we need a stronger global partnership to achieve the MDGs by the 2015 deadline,” he said. “Do not place the burden of fiscal austerity on the backs of the poor — either in your own countries or abroad.”

The report said 16 key donors reduced their aid in 2011, mainly in response to the global economic crisis. The economic downturn also led governments to adopt protectionist trade policies that hurt developing nations, the report said.

The U.N. chief said essential medicines are much too expensive and only half of public health facilities in developing countries are able to provide them. He said Internet access is also prohibitively expensive for the poor, especially in Africa.

Latest MDG report shows uneven improvement

The United Nations has issued their latest progress report on meeting the Millennium Development Goals. The report is showing that improvement has been made on reaching the goals, but that the success has been unequal. The number of people below the poverty line is falling to a brand new low, this is despite the struggles of the recent global recession and our current record high food prices.

From the Guardian, writer Mark Tran sums up the UN report.

The overall poverty rate is expected to fall below 15% – well below the 23% target set in the millennium development goals (MDGs) – by 2015, fulfilling the target of the first MDG of halving between 1990 and 2015 the proportion of people living on less than $1 day. The gains come despite the economic and financial crisis of 2008 that began in the US and Europe.

That the world remains on track is due to the momentum of growth in the developing world. In absolute numbers, the number of people in developing countries in extreme poverty (living on less than $1.25 a day) is projected to fall below 900 million, according the UN's annual report card of regional progress towards the eight MDGs.

East Asia continues to record the sharpest reduction in poverty, particularly in China and India, where the number of people living in extreme poverty in both countries fell by about 455 million between 1990 and 2005, and where 320 million more people are expected to join their ranks by 2015. The UN MDG report said projections for sub-Saharan Africa are slightly more upbeat than previously estimated, and the extreme poverty rate in the region is expected to fall below 36%.

Despite significant reductions in extreme poverty, the world will find it difficult to eradicate hunger, however, which is another target of MDG 1. The persistence of hunger is forcing policymakers to address problems such as access to food and high food prices. The Food and Agriculture Organisation has been asked to undertake a comprehensive review to see what policies could lead to a reduction in the proportion of people going hungry, which has plateaued at 16%.

Sub-Saharan Africa chalked up the best record for improvement in primary school enrolment, but the world is far from achieving universal primary education, MDG 2. Burundi, Madagascar, Rwanda, Samoa, São Tomé and Principe, Togo and Tanzania are among the countries that have achieved, or are nearing the goal of universal primary education. The abolition of school fees has contributed to progress in many of these countries, the UN said.

Making the most of the next five years to meet the MDGs

From IRIN, a story on how to accelerate meeting the Millennium Development Goals in the next five years.

A decade after world leaders adopted the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), there is no consensus on what impact they have had on global poverty.

The academics, policy-makers, civil society activists and development workers who gathered in Johannesburg on 16-19 January for a summit on global poverty agreed that the MDGs have made a difference, but have fallen far short of the ambitious targets on poverty, education, health, gender equality and global partnership that 189 countries committed to achieving by 2015.

An estimated one billion people around the world regularly go to bed hungry and between 1.5 and two billion are thought to be living in poverty. HIV continues to claim thousands of lives every day and there has been little improvement in infant and maternal mortality rates. Meanwhile, inequality within and among countries has widened and foreign aid levels have declined during the past two years of the global financial crisis.

That is the glass-half-empty view of the MDGs. However, David Hulme, executive director of the University of Manchester’s Brooks World Poverty Institute, which organized the summit, takes a glass-half-full view. He argues that if countries and the international community accelerated their efforts on development over the next five years, the glass could reach three-quarters-full by 2015.

“The idea of the MDGs as a failure is definitely wrong, there has been progress,” he told journalists on 19 January.

Globally, there have been gains in terms of poverty reduction, life expectancy and education over the past decade, although it is unclear whether those gains can be attributed to the MDGs or to massive economic growth in countries like China and India.

However, a number of promises made by developed and developing countries to reduce poverty have not been kept and the mechanisms for holding leaders accountable are weak. Hulme and several other speakers commented on the over-emphasis on the role of aid as a driver of development.

“The focus ... needs to be on national development goals and supporting governments to reduce poverty, not just through funding but through knowledge exchange,” Hulme told participants.

Sakiko Fukudo-Parr of the New School University in New York described the MDGs as a valuable instrument for drawing attention to priorities, but cautioned that the eight goals ignored many pressing developmental priorities such as the need for structural transformation, job creation and to narrow the growing equality gap.

Another speaker, Sophie Harman of City University in London, agreed that while goal setting was important, “some things you just can’t measure”. The goal of gender equality, for example, could not be achieved by simply counting the number of female appointments in an organization.

With just four years to go, Hulme said it was time to begin discussions about what form a new set of goals might take. “The MDGs were a bare minimum,” he said. “We need another vehicle for the next decade with grander ambitions.”

In a statement, delegates called for the process of defining post-2015 goals to be led by the UN but to include participation from civil society, governments and the poor themselves. Fukudo-Parr said the new goals would need to reflect global concerns that have emerged over the last decade such as climate change, and correct elements missing from the previous goals, for example, mechanisms for holding governments to account.

Speaking to IRIN on the sidelines of the summit, Hulme said the MDGs had not fundamentally changed the way people thought of poverty as an inevitable feature of the world and that a global call to action was needed to change such thinking.

“Philanthropy will help,” he said, “but national governments have to do it.”

Brazil claims to have eliminated childhood malnutrition

Brazil is claiming that that have met another of the Millennium Development Goals by eliminating extreme malnutrition from the country. Since 1989, Brazil says that they cut in half the following: number of people living on less than a dollar, the number infant deaths, and deaths of women during childbirth.

From Fox News Latino, we read more about the achievements being announced from Brazil.

The proportion of underweight Brazilian children under 5 fell by 7.1 percent to 1.8 percent between 1989 and 2006, thus achieving one of the first goals in the eradication of poverty and hunger set by the United Nations to be reached by the year 2015, the Health Ministry said.

Brazil has also substantially reduced the number of people living on an income equivalent to $1 a day, has shrunk the gap between rich and poor, and has increased the employment rate, all areas contemplated in the Millennium Goals.

Health Minister Jose Gomes Temporao said that Brazil should reach the goal of reducing the childhood-mortality rate by 2012, three years before the U.N. target date, if the country "stays its present course."

According to the report, infant mortality fell by 58 percent in Brazil between 1990 and 2008, to the point of having 22.8 deaths for every 1,000 live births, and within three years should fall to 17.8 deaths, which would mean achieving the goal set by the United Nations.

Read more: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/health/2010/12/15/brazil-claims-eradicated-extreme-poverty/#ixzz18Cq3Hb91

The new UN strategy to improve maternal health moves forward

During Millennium Development Goal summit last fall, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon announced a new initiative to improve maternal health. A woman's chance of living through a childbirth is actually pretty low in the under-developed world, as low as a one in 21 chance for some countries. This initiative actually has some political will and momentum, the first meetings for the committee will take place during the upcoming World Economic Forum

From the Guardian, World Vision's Kate Eardley talks about the new U.N. program and the improvements that need to be made for women around the world.

The launch in September of the UN secretary general's Strategy for women's and children's health has been met with great excitement by those who want to see a drop in the number of deaths. The report comes with the promise of saving the lives of 16 million women and children by 2015. But there is some anxiety about how this will be achieved.

What makes this strategy stand out from previous initiatives is the high level of political will it has garnered. It has received significant commitments from traditional donors, including countries of the G8, but, crucially, a large number of governments from developing countries also made major policy and financial pledges. Afghanistan committed to triple public spending on health and increase the percentage of women giving birth with a skilled health worker, while Niger pledged to introduce legislation to raise the legal age of marriage to 18 and increase female literacy.

So how do we move from promise to delivery; from commitments to lives saved? This week marks a critical milestone as the WHO announces a timeline for progress. Dr Margaret Chan, WHO director-general, will appoint the prime minister of Canada and the president of Tanzania as co-chairs of a group of 25 global leaders who will champion maternal and child health - the commission on accountability and information. This group will be tasked with mapping out how to turn the promises made in September into action in rural communities and slums in the poorest countries. It will have its first meeting at the World Economic Forum in Davos early next year, before making a final report to the UN general assembly in September 2011.

In Sierra Leone, where childbirth survival rates are some of the lowest in the world, the government has made its own commitments to the global strategy, pledging to "increase access to health facilities for pregnant women, newborns and children under five through the removal of user fees". An estimated 4 billion people living in developing countries have to borrow money or sell assets so they can access healthcare for themselves or their families.

Mauritius will achieve MDGs but still has more problems to solve

The island country of Mauritius is on track to meet all of the Millennium Development Goals. However the achievement is another example of how the goals fall short in gauging public welfare. Some things such as health, unemployment and the environment still need improvement on the island.

From the IPS, writer Nasseem Ackburally gives us a summary of the achievements and the lingering problems for Mauritius.

"There are other real issues [that need to be addressed], like debt, non-communicable diseases, pollution, insecurity and violence, and so on, that have a negative impact on our society," says Vidya Charan, executive director of non-profit organisation Mauritius Family Planning and Welfare Association (MFPWA).

Charan is worried the government will use the positive MDG figures as an excuse to ignore other social problems, such as the decline of employment in the textile and manufacturing industries or environmental destruction caused by the ever-growing tourism and construction industries.

In terms of the MDG framework, Mauritius is certainly looking good. Less than one percent of the population of 1.2 million is deemed to be living in extreme poverty (MDG 1); economic growth is rapid and per capita income is above $4,000 (MDG 8).

Mauritius has already achieved MDG 2, universal access to primary education in the early 1990s. It has met MDG 4, reducing of the under-five child mortality rate by two thirds, and MDG 5 of improving maternal health – maternal deaths holding steady between 2007 and 2009.

HIV, malaria and tuberculosis prevalence (MDG 6) are very low in the country. The island has been declared a malaria risk-free area, while TB incidence decreased from 10.8 cases per 100,000 people in 1990 to 8.9 cases per 100,000 people in 2009. HIV prevalence is low at 0.15 percent in the highest risk group of 15 to 24-year-olds.

In terms of achieving environmental sustainability (MDG 7), Mauritius can show, among other factors, that it managed to decrease consumption of chlorofluorocarbons from 65 metric tonnse in 1993 to a negligible amount in 2004.

The island state offers citizens a range of free social services, including education from primary to tertiary levels, public health services, public transport for students and the elderly as well as subsidies for basic food items and gas.

The third MDG, gender equality, is a blot on country's MDG copybook. Although the government’s report claims it managed to eliminate gender disparities in education, women’s participation in the labour force and politics is still an issue.

A MDG summit for the Philippines and grumbles about lack of funding

Government officials in the Philippines are complaining of budget shortfalls in a recent Millennium Development Goal summit. The summit is being held to explore ways to meet the MDGs in the Philippines, but many are warning that some goals will not be reached.

Statistics presented at the summit give evidence that the goal on improving maternal and childbirth health will not me be met. The goal of improving access to education in the Philippines is also unlikely as enrollment has not improved enough.

From GMA News, we read more about what was discussed at the summit.

"Considering the threats of climate change, there will be a greater difficulty in the attainment of some of the MDGs given that the Philippines is one of the so called 'climate hotspots'," Economic Planning Secretary Cayetano Paderanga said Monday during the first Philippine MDG summit at Dusit Thani Hotel in Makati City.

The country is facing the daunting task of achieving its MDGs because it has to compete for a slice of the "shrinking development pie" with the impact of the global financial crisis on developed economies, Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo said.

Past experiences have shown that it was difficult to get official development assistance (ODA) from traditional donors during global economic down turns, he added.

As a country with middle income country (MIC) status, the Philippines is less viable than low income nations to qualify for ODA and access development loans.

"Our status as an MIC is of no comfort to millions of our countrymen who live below the poverty line, unaware of the dynamics of the politics of development assistance," Romulo said.

Paderanga said despite government interventions for the MDGs a “significant proportion" of the country's population remain impoverished — 30 per cent to 32.9 per cent in 2006.

“With five years remaining" before the MDG target by 2015, "we need to do more," he said.

World Bank asks for more money from rich nations

The head of the World Bank is asking for more money from rich nations. Robert Zoellick wants the rich nations to renew their contributions to a World Bank fund that gives low to no interest loans to the poorest nations. Zoellick says that not contributing to this fund will devastate the fight against poverty and will hurt achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.


From the Guardian, writer Larry Elliot provides some quotes from Zoellick and a response from Brittan.

The bank is seeking donations to replenish its International Development Association (IDA) fund. This provides soft loans and grants to the 79 poorest countries. Zoellick wants to at least match the $41bn (£26bn) raised for the last three-year programme. "Lack of support for the IDA would devastate the effort to achieve the millennium development goals," Zoellick said. "What was very clear to me at recent UN meetings was that it is critical not to see these goals as independent, but to connect the dots that show their inter-relationship.

"And the IDA is maybe the only concessional funding system that offers grants or no-interest loans to allow countries with a sense of ownership to connect their development efforts with donor efforts from other countries."

Officials from donor countries will meet in Washington tomorrow to gauge support for the 16th round of IDA funding, with the aim of making pledges by the year end.

Britain was the biggest single donor to IDA 15, providing more than £2bn, but International development secretary Andrew Mitchell said it was too early to say how he would respond to the appeal.

Mitchell said Britain's contribution would depend on his department's multilateral aid review, a study launched by the government into how well money provided by Britain is spent by international organisations such as the bank and UN.

What the leaders should take away from the MDG summit

Now that the Millennium Development Goals summit at the UN is completed, here comes the commentary on it.

The leaders will go away from UN thinking they accomplished something, that they showed they care, that they pledged to do something. The problem with these good feelings is that they subside and morph into inaction.

From the Guardian's Poverty Matters blog, writer Larry Elliott points to several recent studies that world leaders should keep in mind long after the summit is over.

Let's just examine a few pieces of evidence that have emerged in recent weeks. Exhibit number one comes from the International Monetary Fund, which, in a study it prepared for the New York summit, noted that the economic crisis of the past three years has been a setback in the fight against poverty. The IMF estimates that 71 million fewer people will have escaped absolute poverty by 2020 than would have been the case had the financial meltdown not occurred.

Exhibit number two was a report from Unicef highlighting the gulf between the life chances of rich and poor children, not only between developed and developing countries but within developing countries themselves. In the least-developed nations of sub-Saharan Africa, a child born into one of the most impoverished families is three times more likely to be underweight than a child growing up in the richest 20% of families in the same country.

Inequality, in other words, is everywhere.

Exhibit number three is the recent sharp increase in food prices, up almost 17% in the past year according to the Economist. In part, this is due to the impact of financial speculators, but there is a structural reason why hedge funds are buying up farms in poor countries. The rapid industrialisation in China is leading to much higher demand for food than the shrinking agricultural acreage can cope with. The dependency of China, now the world's second biggest economy, on imports of food to feed its 1.3 billion people is growing inexorably, and that is ratcheting up prices.

President Obama addresses the UN

US President Barack Obama finished off the United Nations' Millennium Development Goal summit with a speech yesterday. President Obama talked about the need for more effective aid to give countries a chance to sustain themselves instead of being dependent on others.

Another theme in Obama's speech was how international aid is really in the givers self interest. The country giving the aid can benefit long term through increased trade. International aid can also benefit the wealthy countries with greater safety, for productive educated people are less likely to become militant.

From the Washington Post, writer Scott Wilson describes the policy behind the speech.

On Wednesday, while outlining changes in how the United States will pursue international development, Obama challenged rich nations to view assistance to poorer ones as a vital part of their national security strategy.

"I suspect that some in wealthier countries may ask, 'With our economies struggling, so many people out of work, and so many families barely getting by, why a summit on development?' " Obama told an audience of several hundred people in the U.N. General Assembly hall. "The answer is simple. In our global economy, progress in even the poorest countries can advance the prosperity and security of people far beyond their borders, including my fellow Americans."

The administration has been working to redefine development aid as a national security tool, and the strategy the president outlined Wednesday seeks to more closely coordinate the nearly two dozen government agencies involved in aid policy.

U.S. development aid extends to more than 100 countries, although much of it in recent years has been concentrated in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Obama said his administration will begin assessing development policy by how successful it is in helping countries move "from poverty to prosperity," not just by how much money, food or medicine it distributes.

"Our focus on assistance has saved lives in the short term, but it hasn't always improved those societies over the long term," the president said. "Consider the millions of people who have relied on food assistance for decades. That's not development, that's dependence, and it's a cycle we need to break."

A pro viewpoint on the international financial tax

The United Nations summit on the Millennium Development Goals did have one concrete policy mentioned. French President Nicolas Sarkozy brought up the tax on international financial transactions. This new tax would be on the currency transactions that are made to make money off of rising of falling currency prices.

AIDS activist Matthew Kavanagh offers a pro-viewpoint of this new tax in a piece for the Huffington Post. Kavanagh says the tax will help to bring some regulation this form of trading, and bring a lot of help to those in poverty.

When President Barack Obama was running for his office he pledged $50 billion over 5 years to the Global Fund and an increase of at least $1 billion per year to the U.S.-bilateral PEPFAR program. But instead the White House has requested essentially flat funding and a $50 million decrease this year to the U.S. contribution to the Global Fund.

AIDS activists have been heartbroken watching as momentum in the fight against AIDS begins to falter. The disconnect between science and policy is drastic: reaching all those in need of antiretroviral treatment could drastically slash infection rates and save millions of lives. One study shows as much as 92% reduction when the HIV+ member of a couple is on AIDS treatment! The newest models show that if we invest now we can halt the pandemic in its tracks--we can end HIV for the next generation. Or we can flat-line and the devastation returns.

I am told by people within the Obama administration that they are thinking about making the first ever multi-year pledge to the Global Fund from the U.S. My question is whether this will turn out to be a cynical "as little as we can get away with" moment or a transformation in U.S. policy. A small increase would be a catastrophe because pandemics don't wait around for small progress but need serious commitment and leadership--which will pay off. But if the U.S. pledged more like $5-$6 billion over the coming three years it could transform the debate. It would pressure other donors to do more and the Global Fund could have what it needs to craft a bold, winning strategy.
...

This week the French and Spanish presidents both came out strongly for a tiny tax on financial speculation that could raise hundreds of billions of dollars each year. Congressman Pete Stark has put forward a bill in the U.S. congress to do just that--a 0.005% tax on currency speculation by the big banks.

The currency markets have reached $4 trillion per day. Yes, that's trillion with a "T," worth of just trading money back and forth between currencies in a gamble to try to make fast cash off changing exchange rates. We're not talking about you or I traveling and needing to change cash or migrant families sending home needed money--for that we already pay huge percentages to the banks. But the speculators--those with millions to just move around from account to account--they do so without being taxed at even a miniscule rate.

At the U.N. this week all we heard from wealthy-country officials was what difficult budget times we were living in and how we should stop bothering them about financing. Well at least President Sarkozy is paying a bit of attention. He's noticed that the mammoth, untaxed financial sector isn't doing its part. And he's figured out that all the arguments against this idea don't hold water--it's doable, and it would raise billions each year.

Two successes of the MDGs

Many agree that the Millennium Development Goals will not be reached by the target year of 2015. Despite possibly falling short, the Goals have done something positive in giving the world benchmarks to measure progress. Even though the goals may be unrealistic, they still gave many something to strive for.

An article in today's Christian Science Monitor tires to relate what good the Goals have done. The Monitor article from Drew Hinshaw gives the top 5 MDG success stories. For our snippet, we are limited to giving you the top 2. Liesbet Steer of the Overseas Development Institute in London provides some quotes for Hinshaw.

1. Africa's future

There's one sector where Africa has undoubtedly soared: Education.

The percentage of children in school desks leaped from 52 to 74 percent since 1990. The continent started the race with many of the lowest enrollment rates, but even in absolute terms, Africa boasts nine of the top performers on boosting enrollment. Look at Madagascar – the country was temporarily overthrown and ruled by a disc jockey last year, but has managed to put 99 percent of its kids in school.
...

2. Ghana, Ethiopia, and Africa’s success stories

Viewed through the unflattering lens of bad governance, Africa’s less-than-stellar performance on poverty reduction during the financial crisis makes sense, says Steer. The continent’s poverty rate has dropped only 12 percent in the past 18 years. Infant mortality has barely fallen at all.

But the first decade of the new millennium hasn’t been a complete wash for the earth’s oldest continent, Hay says.

"Sub-Saharan [Africa] is moving more slowly, but it’s moving,” he offered.

The West African nation of Ghana stands out as a success story. It's cut hunger levels by 75 percent since 1990.

Across the continent, in Ethiopia, the percentage of people scraping by on $1.25 a day cascaded from 60 percent to 16 percent.

Angola and the Senegal have already halved their poverty rates.

New maternal and child health strategy announced at UN

An announcement of a new initiative has been made from the UN's Millennium Development Goal summit. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon announced this morning the formation of the Global Strategy for Women's and Children's Health to improve the survival of infants and new mothers.

$40 billion dollars has been raised to fund the Global Strategy for Women's and Children's Health. A coalition of governments, philanthropists and corporations have pledged the cash to fund the strategy.

From this Associated Press article that we found at Google News, Tim Witcher details the goals and donors aof the strategy.

Cutting the unnecessary deaths of women during pregnancy and childbirth and stopping the premature deaths of children under five are the two most slowest moving goals of the eight key development targets set a decade ago.

The UN said spending on women and children reduces poverty, stimulates growth and is a fundamental human right.

Some 140 world leaders and heads of state have attended the summit, and US President Barack Obama will close the meet.

Countries from Afghanistan to Zambia -- but also including Australia, Britain, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Russia and the United States -- have contributed to the drive.

The foundations of the world's richest men, Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim and Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates, were among the contributors. They joined rights groups such as Amnesty International and multinationals such as LG Electronics and Pfizer.
...

A UN statement said the deaths of more than 15 million children under five would be saved between 2011 and 2015 through the initiative.

It added that it would prevent 33 million unwanted pregnancies and 740,000 women from dying from complications relating to pregnancy and childbirth. It estimated that 120 million children would be protected from pneumonia.

The UN Children's Fund, the World Health Organization and the World Bank re among international bodies that will help mobilize support for Ban's drive.

It was unclear how much of the 40 billion dollars announced is a new spending commitment.

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe addresses the UN

Some of the controversial world leaders gave speeches yesterday at the UN's Millennium Development Goals summit. The speech from Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is gaining a lot of attention from the American press. We are going to ignore his speech for now and focus on Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.

From the Voice of America, writer Ntungamili Nkomo and Blessing Zulu covered Mugabe's accusatory speech to the UN.

Addressing the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Tuesday, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe again blasted the West for maintaining sanctions on him and his inner circle, charging that the restrictive measures were keeping the country mired in poverty.

Mr. Mugabe’s U.N. broadside coincided with the arrival of a Zimbabwean delegation representing all three political parties in Harare's national unity government, which was to take up the sanctions question with U.S. officials in keeping with an ongoing bilateral re-engagement process, official Zimbabwean sources said.

President Mugabe told world leaders that “the debilitating sanctions” were hindering Zimbabwean progress toward U.N Millennium Development goals on poverty and hunger, among others.

But he said that despite the sanctions imposed by the United States, Europe and others, Harare had made great progress fighting HIV/Aids and maintaining quality basic education. He said Zimbabwe as in the past continues to have the highest literacy rate in Africa.

With him in New York was a so-called "re-engagement delegation” comprising Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa of ZANU-PF, Energy Minister Elton Mangoma of the Movement for Democratic Change formation of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, and International Cooperation Minister Priscilla Misihairambwi-Mushonga of the MDC wing of Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara.

The three arrived in New York early Tuesday for the bilateral discussions.

Misihairambwi-Mushonga told VOA Studio 7 reporter Ntungamili Nkomo that the trio will open talks Wednesday with U.S. officials led by Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johhny Carson.

But political analyst Rejoice Ngwenya said the Zimbabwean delegation should not expect much in the way of concessions from Washington on sanctions as Harare has not implemented a range of political and economic reforms urged by the U.S. administration.

Meanwhile, Mr. Mugabe has come under fire for spending more than US$2 million on his trip to the U.S., from which he was scheduled to travel on to Ecuador. He was accompanied to New York by an entourage of 80 officials, according to the U.S. Embassy in Harare. Sources at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said a request for two million in funding went to the Treasury.

Political analyst Charles Mangongera told VOA Studio 7 reporter Blessing Zulu that Mr. Mugabe’s travel budget shows insensitivity to the plight of ordinary Zimbabweans struggling to survive.

U.S. Embassy spokesperson Sharon Hudson Dean said that contrary to Zimbabwean press reports saying that visas had been denied to central intelligence organization head Happyton Bonyongwe and Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corp. reporter Reuben Barwe, both of those individuals were granted U.S. visas.

From New York Mr. Mugabe is to head to Ecuador to accept an honorary doctorate from that country's Anglican Church in recognition of 30 years of "outstanding leadership."

Asian Maternal and Child health stats from Save The Children

A new report from Save The Children gives us statistics on child and maternal health in Asia. The report shows an uneven balance of child deaths from urban to rural areas. Urban children have a better chance of survival than those in rural areas.

Save The Children says there is improvement in child survival rates, but they fall short of what is needed to meet the Millennium Development Goal for child mortality. MGD number 4 has a goal of cutting child and maternal deaths by two thirds by the year 2015.

From the Inter Press Service, writer Marwaan Macan-Markar gives us country-by-country statistics.

A recent report by Save the Children, entitled ‘A Fair Chance At Life’, shows that Cambodia has seen a 32 percent drop in child mortality figures among the country’s "richest 20 percent", but only an 18 percent reduction in child mortality among the "poorest 20 percent".

Indonesia, the region’s giant where 16 percent of its 225 million people live below the poverty line, has recorded "equitable progress," noted the 37-page report. The poorest 20 percent has seen child mortality figures drop by 29 percent, while the richest 20 percent has witnessed a nine percent decline.

Military-ruled Burma, also known as Myanmar, lags behind all with the worst child mortality figures. It reportedly has 104 children under five years dying for every 1,000 live births. Cambodia, by contrast, has 82 deaths of children under five years of age per 1,000 live births. Laos, the third of this region’s poorest countries, has 75 deaths per 1,000 live births.

Child rights groups have hailed Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam as being well on course to meeting the 2015 targets. The region’s richest country, the city-state of Singapore, has been singled out in a study by ‘The Lancet’, a British medical journal, as leading all countries in the world in child mortality rates, having reduced it by 75 percent since 1990.

The inequity in child mortality rates in countries like Cambodia and the Philippines, which has 32 deaths per 1,000 live births, is "partly an urban-rural divide," said Phillips. "There is no conscious discrimination, but a natural tendency for nurses and doctors to work in cities."

At times, the distance to a health care is a day away, making it costly and time consuming for a family to take a newborn to treat illnesses that lead to child deaths, such as pneumonia, diarrhoea and sepsis.

"If you live more distant from a health centre, you will be reached later unlike those who live closer to health care workers," said Basil Rodriques, regional adviser for your child survival and development at the Asia office of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). "The MDGs saw the ‘low hanging fruits’ reached first."

Tax on financial transactions brought up at UN

A world wide tax on financial transactions was mentioned during a couple of speeches at the United Nations yesterday. While world leaders meet at the UN to talk about the Millennium Development Goals this idea to drum up some financing for development projects was brought up to its widest audience.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero asked the UN members to decide on implementing the new tax on global financial transactions. Many business leaders are opposed to the tax saying that it could prevent such transactions from being exchanged with the under-developed world.

From Canada.com, writer Steven Edwards gives us this angle of the events at the UN.

While the leaders of several developed countries have pressed the idea of launching a global finance tax before, speaking about it anew at such a widely attended summit gives it added weight.

The idea has also garnered growing attention as numerous developed countries, such as Canada, have announced plans to limit upcoming foreign aid transfers against the backdrop of the global recession.

"We can decide right here; why wait?" said Sarkozy. "Finance has globalized, so why should we not ask finance to participate in stabilizing the world by taking a tax on each financial transaction?"

Zapatero said alternative financing was needed that is "not as vulnerable" as rich-country budgets during a recession.

"My government is committed to defending the new tax, and making it a reality . . ." he said. "It appears sensible, just, and logical that we ask (for this) minimum effort to take millions of people out of misery."

Zapatero's government cut its development aid in the face of the financial crisis. By contrast, Canada's aid budget for the new fiscal year is — at $5.165 billion — at a record level ahead of the announced freeze next year.

The three-day conference aims to review the world's progress in achieving eight development goals meant to halve levels of poverty and dramatically increase living standards among the world's poor by 2015.

One troubled Millennium village in Kenya

A project that the United Nations has spearheaded in an effort to meet the Millennium Development Goals is the Millennium Villages. Selected villages in Africa receive a lot of aid and effort, as the UN brings in technology and specialists to try to bring the entire village out of poverty.

The project has obtained some success as village residents are healthier and the children receive education. However, critics call it a waste of money and say it is impossible to replicate any success through the whole continent.

From this Associated Press article that we found at Google News, authors Jason Straziuso and Malkhadir Muhumed tell us more about one of the villages in Kenya.

About 70 percent of Dertu's people earn less than $1 a day, and most depend on food aid. The two-room hotel charges $1.25 a night. Generators and solar energy provide some basic needs, like charging cell phones, but the school's nine donated computers aren't yet connected to the Internet.

Not surprisingly, the advent of Millennium Village status four years ago generated exaggerated expectations, and now some villagers feel disappointed. There is also sharp debate between supporters and detractors about whether the idea can be "scaled up" into sweeping solutions for the world's poorest region.

Yet improvements can be seen in Dertu: four new health care workers, free medicines and vaccines, a birthing center and laboratory under construction, bed nets to ward of mosquitoes. In 2006, 49 percent of 916 individuals tested had malaria. That rate has dropped to 8 percent.

School attendance has doubled for boys and tripled for girls, there are high school scholarships and a dorm for boys. Each village gets $120 in spending per person per year, half from the villages project, the rest from the government or aid groups.

As a result, Dertu, which barely existed until UNICEF dug a well here 13 years ago, has become a magnet for surrounding villages.

"A lot has to be done still to meet the Millennium Development Goals. A lot has been done and for that we are thankful," said Ibrahim Ali Hassan, a 60-year-old village elder with dyed red hair who waves a cell phone in his hand as he talks.

Of the complainers, he remarks: "They think now that we are a Millennium Village they will be built a house with an ocean view."

Mohamed Ahmed Abdi, 58, heads the Millennium Village Committee, liaison between the project and the villagers. He gripes that there are too few teachers, and that the well water is salty and unhealthy.

"There is a difference between what we have been told and what really exists. We have been told that 'Your village is the Millennium Village.' We have been told that 'You will get roads, electricity, water and education,'" he said.

The Millennium Villages are the brainchild of Jeffrey Sachs, the Columbia University economist who is special adviser to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the Millennium Development Goals.

Sachs readily acknowledges that Dertu hasn't made a breakthrough, calling it "one of the most difficult venues on the whole planet." But he points to other advances in lifting villages out of extreme poverty.

"I think on the whole they've been a tremendous success, not only in what they are accomplishing on the ground but also opening eyes to what can be accomplished more generally," Sachs told The Associated Press. "They're a proving ground of how to create effective systems in health, education, local infrastructure, business development and agriculture."