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THE
whole world is falling behind in meeting the United
Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), according
to a World Bank-International Monetary Fund (WB-IMF)
report, indicating most of those lagging are poorer and
poor countries including the
Philippines.
The WB-IMF’s
Global Monitoring Report 2008 on MDGs and the
Environment: Agenda for Inclusive and Sustainable
Development thus urged donor countries and organizations
to “expedite” their commitments in delivering aid to
support the efforts to achieve the MDGs, stressing that
if those aid commitments are not delivered quickly,
there will be significant shortfalls in achieving the
goals.
“Sizable
shortfalls loom if current trends in official
development assistance continue; shortfalls will
particularly hurt those poor countries and fragile
states that, thanks to their reform efforts, offer
promising scale-up opportunities,” the report stated.
The
report also emphasized the need to increase aid for
trade and behind-the-border reforms of key trade-related
services. This, the report said, can help poor countries
take advantage of trade opportunities and promote
inclusive globalization.
“In this
Year of Action on the MDGs, I am particularly concerned
about the risks of failing to meet the goal of reducing
hunger and malnutrition, the ‘forgotten MDG’. As the
report shows, reducing malnutrition has a ‘multiplier’
effect, contributing to success in other MDGs including
maternal health, infant mortality and education,” said
World Bank Group president Robert Zoellick in a
statement.
A recent
survey in the
Philippines
has shown that hunger increased last year as well as the
numbers of the poor—a situation many attribute to rising
oil prices that impact food prices and the ability of
governments to keep pace with the increases.
The
report stated that while there has been significant
progress in achieving the goal on halving poverty by
2015, the “prospects are gravest” in achieving the
reduction in child and maternal mortality, as well as
cohort survival in achieving the goal on universal
primary education.
To
address these concerns, the report recommended immediate
implementation of a six-point agenda that would expedite
and broaden the progress toward the achievement of the
MDGs and ensure inclusive and sustainable development.
The
agenda includes sustaining and broadening growth,
achieving better results in human development,
integrating development and environmental
sustainability, scaling up aid and increasing its
effectiveness, harnessing trade for strong, inclusive
and sustainable growth, and leveraging the WB-IMF
support for inclusive and sustainable development.
Poor
countries, the WB-IMF report said, need to achieve an
annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 7 percent
or more to “make serious dents in poverty.”
Developing countries must also carefully manage risks to
growth arising from the subprime crisis and the spike in
commodity prices suggesting that implementing “prudent
fiscal and monetary policies” are key in weathering
these risks.
The
report said increasing spending on education and health
programs is not the sole answer to achieving the MDGs,
but that such spending must be tied to quality and
fairness.
“Improved governance, stronger accountability mechanisms
and sound expenditure management are essential to
raising the quality of education and health services and
improving the access of poor, underserved populations,”
the report stated.
Increased private flows to developing countries create
opportunities to catalyze and leverage more private
capital in support of development, including through
innovative public-private partnerships, the report
added; but that both borrowers and creditors need to pay
attention to debt sustainability considerations to
prevent a reaccumulation of unsustainable debts
following debt relief.
In any
case, current trends show the human development goals
will unlikely be met at the global level with shortfalls
seen in reducing child malnutrition. The HIV prevalence
rate has also shown a decline in Africa, but has risen
in some other regions while mortality from malaria
remains high. It said, however, there is greater
progress on the related goal of halving the proportion
of those without access to safe water.
The
report said that though countries in
East Asia, which includes the
Philippines, have already achieved the goal of halving
poverty toward eradication in 2015, the achievement of
this goal has been uneven. |
