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THE
Philippines is lagging behind in achieving the eight
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) set in the United
Nations Millennium Declaration, according to the
National Economic and Development Authority (Neda).
The Neda
report on the MDGs was part of the 10th National
Convention on Statistics and the 18th National
Statistics Month.
Neda
Social Development Staff Director Erlinda Capones said
the Philippines’s ability to achieve the goals on
universal primary education; gender equality and the
empowerment of women; improving maternal health; and
access to reproductive health services are low.
Capones,
meanwhile, said the country has a high chance of
achieving the goals on eradicating extreme poverty and
hunger; reducing child mortality; combatting AIDS,
malaria and other diseases; and environmental
sustainability.
However,
she admitted that there is a difficulty in monitoring
the country’s progress in achieving MDGs, citing as
factors the infrequency of surveys, unavailability of
data at the subnational level and incomparability of
data.
Capones
said there is also a need to improve the government’s
methodology in determining the probability of achieving
the MDG targets.
To meet
the MDG challenges, the country must, according to her,
also address wide disparities across regions, curb high
population growth and accelerate the implementation of
basic education and health reforms.
The Neda
director added that the government must also ensure the
strict enforcement of laws pertaining to the achievement
of the MDGs;
strengthening the capacity of local government units (LGUs)
to deliver basic services and manage programs and
projects; and ensuring transparency and accountability
in government transactions.
Capones
also said generating and mobilizing increased resources
for MDG-related programs and projects as well as
strengthening the government’s partnership with
nongovernment organizations, the private sector and the
official development assistance community, are
necessary.
Meanwhile, the country is not alone in experiencing
difficulties in achieving the MDGs. The United Nations
Statistics Division (UNSD) Statistical Planning and
Development Section chief Francesca Perucci said in a
speech at the conference that a lot of challenges still
have to be met before all the MDGs are
achieved.
Perucci
enumerated the following as the biggest challenges to be
met:
• Over
half a million women still die each year from treatable
and preventable complications of pregnancy and
childbirth. The odds that a woman will die from these
causes in sub-Saharan
Africa are one in 16 over the course of her lifetime, compared to
one in
3,800 in
the developed world.
• If
current trends continue, the target of halving the
proportion of underweight children will be missed by 30
million children, largely because of slow progress in
Southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
• The
number of people dying from AIDS worldwide increased to
2.9 million in 2006, and prevention measures are failing
to keep pace with the growth of the epidemic. In 2005
more than 15 million children had lost one or both
parents to AIDS.
• Half
the population of the developing world lack basic
sanitation. In order to meet the MDG target, an
additional 1.6 billion people will need access to
improved sanitation over the period 2005-2015. If trends
since 1990 continue, the world is likely to miss the
target by almost 600 million people.
• To
some extent, these situations reflect the fact that the
benefits of economic growth in the developing world have
been unequally shared. Widening income inequality is of
particular concern in
Eastern Asia, where the share of consumption of the poorest people
declined dramatically between 1990 and 2004.
• Most
economies have failed to provide employment
opportunities to their youth, with young people more
than three times as likely as adults to be unemployed.
•
Warming of the climate is now unequivocal. Emissions of
carbon dioxide, the primary contributor to global
climate change, rose from 23 billion metric tons in 1990
to 29 billion metric tons in 2004. Climate change is
projected to have serious economic and social impacts,
which will impede progress toward the MDGs.
Meanwhile, the United Nations Economic and Social
Commission for Asia and the Pacific (Unescap) said the
region, despite its wealth and economic achievements,
are also not on track in meeting the MDGs.
“While
most of the developing countries can point to success in
some of the development goals, none is on course to
achieve all of them,” Unescap said in a statement.
The
Unescap said that in the MDG report to be launched
simultaneously in Manila and Bangkok on Monday, October
8 it is expected to state that the progress in achieving
the MDGs has not been shared in the region.
“Progress in achieving some of the goals such as
reducing poverty, child malnutrition and child mortality
rate, water and sanitation remains a concern for this
region,” the Unescap added.
The
Asian Development Bank said this year’s MDG report is of
key significance as 2008 marks half-way to achieving the
MDGs by target date 2015.
The
report comprises the most recent statistics on MDGs in
Asia and the Pacific but despite its success in reducing
poverty, ADB said the region still has 641 million
people living on less than $1 per day. |
