THE United Nations (UN) on Monday said the Philippines may not be able to keep its commitment in achieving all Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015, or four years from now, even with various projects and programs being implemented under the Aquino administration.

Speaking to reporters at the sidelines of the event, titled “Promoting Inclusive Development to Accelerate Achievement of the MDGs,” UN Resident Coordinator Jacqueline Badcock said, however, if the rate at which MDG programs are carried out are maintained, the country may still be able to meet majority of the targets.

“The Philippines with its new Philippine Development Plan and the emphasis on social sector development, health, education, the 4Ps [Pantawid ng Pamilyang Pilipino Program], the emphasis on agriculture for food security, I think with that emphasis, if you can keep that going and do some acceleration which is planned by the government, you may not be able to achieve all the targets but you will achieve an awful lot of them,” Badcock said.

The millennium goals are eight UN-formulated development objectives its 193 member-states, including the Philippines, vowed to reach by 2015. The goals are to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; achieve universal primary education; promote gender equality and empower women; reduce child mortality; improve maternal health; combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; ensure environmental sustainability; and, develop a global partnership for development.

The Philippines should continue to strive to attain these goals in case it fails to meet the 2015 deadline, the UN official said.

“If those are not achieved entirely by 2015, you don’t stop. You keep going and you find other ways to accelerate,” noted Badcock.

She said targeting to achieve all the goals three years after or by 2018 may be bold but certainly an alternative way for countries to address their development challenges. It can be noted that some countries which have already achieved the MDGs way before the 2015 deadline have continued their efforts, and aimed to achieve MDG Plus targets they have set for themselves.

“There is a huge push and desire to achieve the targets by 2015 and beyond. I mean, we have to recall that 2015 is a target for the short term, we have to sustain that, we have to make sure that every poor person is reached, every poor person has the right to life, has the right to food, has the right to health, right to education, that everybody gets that chance. We can’t expect that everybody will have it by 2015 but you probably can expect everybody to have it by 2018, why not, be bold,” Badcock said.

Meanwhile, to help the Philippines achieve the goals, the UN has included the country as one of the recipients under the MDG Achievement Fund, which is supported by the Spanish government.

The Philippines was able to receive a grant of $22.875 million, or around a billion pesos, to finance joint programs to achieve the MDGs.

The projects that are included in the MDG-F are the $8 million worth strengthening the Philippines’s institutional capacity to adapt to climate change; $5.375 million worth enhancing access to and provision of water services with the active participation of the poor; $6 million worth Alternative to Migration: Decent Jobs for Filipino Youth; and the $3.5 million worth ensuring food security and nutrition for children 0-24 months in the Philippines.

During the forum, the National Economic and Development Authority Public Investment Staff Assistant Director Florante Igtiben said the project on climate change and water services are already 97-percent and 75-percent complete to date, while the climate change project is set to be completed by year-end and, the water services project is set to be completed next year.

The climate change projects seeks to help communities adapt to severe weather disturbances, floods, and extreme La Niña and El Niño phenomena, among others. Most of the output for the project has already been encapsulated in the Medium Term Philippine Development Plan.

The water services project, meanwhile, aims to increase water services coverage. Currently, there are 455 waterless communities in the country covered by Sagana at Ligtas na Tubig sa Lahat (Salintubig) project, while the project covers 36 of these municipalities. Waterless municipalities are those having less than 50 percent of their population having access to potable water.

“As of latest data, the achievement of the target on water supply has been determined to be of medium probability given that the country is reported to have reached 81.4-percent coverage already vis-à-vis the targeted 86.9 percent by 2015. Nevertheless, it has been reported that from 2004, the increase annually in coverage has been on a decline, and that in 2008, there actually was a decrease, albeit minimal, from the previous year’s coverage,” Igtiben said.

For the employment project, Labor Undersecretary Lourdes Trasmonte said the project was  stalled by the 2010 polls election but may likely be completed in time for the July 2012 deadline. Trasmonte said the catch-up plan implemented for the project places its completion rate at around 85 percent.

The Department of Labor and Employment aims to help young Filipinos, particularly out-of-school youths, become entrepreneurs through the project. The project aims to train more than 10,000 young Filipinos in agribusinesses like mushroom production, muscovado production, coco coir used to prevent erosion, and other products.

National Nutrition Council Assistant Secretary Maria-Bernardita Flores said the food security and nutrition for children project has a completion rate of around 49.9 percent. The project is set to be completed by 2012 and is already being targetted to be replicated in Regions 5, 6 and 9.

Flores said the project’s expansion will be financed through 50 percent of the agency’s budget, or around P380 million. This will be spent on information dissemination efforts on breastfeeding, as well as training for breastfeeding, councilors and multimedia information campaigns.