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THE
joint report on Millennium Development Goal (MDG)
Progress In Asia and the Pacific 2007 has warned that
many developing countries in the Asia-Pacific region,
including the
Philippines,
may not achieve all the eight goals in time for the 2015
deadline.
The
report by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), United
Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the
Pacific (Unescap), and the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP) is the second of the five-part
Asia-Pacific MDG Study Series report.
“Most of
the developing countries can point to success in some of
the goals, but none is on course to achieve all of them.
Of even greater concern, the Asia-Pacific region also
includes a number of countries that, on present trends,
are likely to miss many, even most, of the MDGs. Those
with greatest difficulties are often the least-developed
countries and some of the landlocked developing
countries and small-island developing states,” the
report stated.
The ADB
said in a statement that the greatest failures for the
region are in addressing the issues of child mortality,
nutrition, improving maternal health, and providing safe
drinking water and sanitation facilities.
For the
Philippines, the report said the country needs to work
on the targets on primary enrollment, children reaching
Grade 5 under Goal 2; and the targets on forest cover,
carbon-dioxide emissions and access to clean water in
urban areas under Goal 7, where it has been regressing
or there has been no progress at all.
The
country is slow in decreasing the number of Filipinos
living on $1 a day and underweight children under the
first goal on halving poverty; and the targets under
Goal 7, which include access to clean water in rural
areas and improving sanitation in rural areas.
Meanwhile, the country is on track in the targets of
decreasing under-5 mortality and infant mortality under
Goal 4; HIV prevention under Goal 6; and improving
sanitation in urban areas under Goal 7.
Furthermore, the country is considered an early achiever
of the target on primary-education completion rate under
Goal 2; the targets under Goal 3 on gender equality at
the elementary, high- school and college levels; the
targets on preventing tuberculosis and decreasing the TB
death rate under Goal 6; and the targets on protected
areas and decreasing CFC consumption under Goal 7.
In
achieving the last goal on building global partnership
for development, the report only made a sweeping
assessment of the efforts in the region and complemented
the efforts of national governments for mobilizing
resources by providing more equitable access to
opportunities for trade, growth and development.
Meanwhile, the report said the growing income inequality
in the region is becoming a concern for the ADB, Unescap
and the UNDP since this is the same uneven pattern seen
in the achievement of the MDGs.
The
report said the chances of children in the region
surviving beyond their fifth birthday, for example,
differ significantly according to which part of a
country they are born in and to what type of household
they belong. This, the report said, is similar to the
under-5 mortality rates, which are usually higher in
rural areas than in urban areas.
The
report said the poorest 20 percent of households
typically account for considerably more than 20 percent
of a country’s child deaths, but can be as high as 30
percent in some countries. The report also said the
poorest rural quintile can be four times more likely to
die than those in the richest urban quintile.
“We need
to adopt inclusive strategies to ensure that benefits of
growth are shared equitably to sustain global growth and
prosperity,” ADB Poverty unit head Shiladitya Chatterjee
said in a statement.
Among
the suggestions Chatterjee includes for remediation is
to jack up the budget for the MDGs by increasing access
to foreign aid, south-south cooperation among countries
and more policy initiatives to help achieve the MDGs.
“Resources are a major issue in the achievement of the
MDGs, particularly for LDCs,” Chatterjee said.
The ADB
said in a statement that another way to meet the
investment needs of the poor economies is to provide
them with market access to developed markets. The ADB
noted the report’s suggestion that preferential access
in trade underpinned by greater economic and technical
cooperation among developing economies can also help the
weaker economies take advantage of global trade. |
