Understanding the Millennium Development Goals and Their Impact
O B J E S T I V O D E L M I L E N I O
1. What Are the MDGs?
The MDGs are a declaration by 189 countries in 2000 under the auspices of the United Nations, committed to increasing global efforts to reduce poverty, its causes, and manifestations.
The targets set were for governments to halve the main problems of mankind. These objectives are equally committed to both developed and developing countries. Countries with more resources are committed to increased efforts through official development assistance, debt relief, international trade measures, and access to essential medicines and technology. Developing countries agree to develop policies to help address the structural constraints of their countries, assist small farmers, invest in infrastructure, promote human rights, and ensure environmental sustainability. Certainly, not everyone agrees on how the priorities have been formulated to achieve these objectives. Some feel that they are incomplete, while others believe that this is an ambitious minimum commitment. It is undisputed that these objectives do not address the possibility of changing the world order and the global distribution of wealth, which is key to transforming the situation in which we live. It is also important to note the lack of democracy and freedoms in many countries, the failure to respect human rights, or the existence of the death penalty.
2. How Many and What?
The Millennium Declaration addresses the key issues and challenges facing humanity at the turn of the century:
- Eradicate extreme hunger and poverty (MDG 1)
- Achieve universal primary education (Goal 2)
- Address gender inequality (MDG 3)
- Reduce child mortality (Goal 4)
- Improve maternal health (Goal 5)
- Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases (Goal 6)
- Ensure environmental sustainability (Goal 7)
- Develop a global partnership for development through enhanced international cooperation (Goal 8)
Goal 1: Eradicate Extreme Hunger and Poverty
Combating extreme poverty and hunger is the first of the Millennium Development Goals and is a major problem on our planet. Specifically, it aims to halve the proportion of people living on less than $1 a day and halve the proportion of people who suffer from hunger. Hunger affects one-third of the world’s population.
It is certainly a shame on humanity that in the early twenty-first century, hunger and malnutrition continue to affect a significant part of the world population, especially when we remember that it is not a question of lack of resources but rather their distribution.
With the availability of technology and the capacity to produce enough food for all mankind, it is unjustifiable that hunger and malnutrition still affect a significant part of the world population. Certainly, the number of women affected by poverty is much greater than that of men. The gap that separates men from women caught in the cycle of poverty has continued to expand over the past decade, a phenomenon known as the “feminization of poverty.” Worldwide, women earn on average just over 50% of what men earn. If no progress is made in this area, many other proposals would be rendered meaningless.
Goal 2: Achieve Universal Primary Education
Although much of the world has increased the enrollment rate of girls and boys, we must redouble our efforts if we are to achieve the goal of full universal schooling. At the community and country level, the lack of basic training prevents citizens from acquiring the skills necessary to escape poverty. A democratic system cannot be consolidated with a significant percentage of the population being illiterate and therefore unable to exercise their rights. Girls have less access to education and often bear the responsibility for family care at an early age. The low enrollment and early school leaving are closely related to poverty. Its eradication depends largely on achieving basic education for all and further increasing efforts in the education of girls, who have higher rates of exclusion and dropout. Illiteracy is a direct consequence of the lack of schooling and presents a huge barrier to escaping poverty.
The international campaign “Education for All,” developed by UNESCO, seeks to raise awareness and respond to urgent educational needs in the least developed countries. It aims to engage governments in implementing programs in their countries and in developing international cooperation programs to achieve Millennium Goal 2: universal primary education by 2015.
Goal 3: Promote Gender Equality and Women’s Autonomy
Eliminating discrimination against women is one of the great challenges of the 21st century. We can see discrimination in almost all countries, cultures, and situations, but sometimes it is so common that we find it “normal.” Only 2 percent of the properties of the planet belong to women, and most women live below the poverty line worldwide. In many countries, women have no inheritance rights. Laws often require them to be subordinate to men and do not allow them to make decisions for themselves.
Even in developed countries, women still face wage discrimination for performing the same work as men. Violence is something that millions of women in the world suffer daily: violence in situations of war, where rape is often used as a “weapon of war” to subjugate the population, and everyday violence from husbands or intimate partners who consider them “owned” by a society that is often complicit in silence. Women and their work are often invisible, with sexist language dominating discussions and history books that feature few names of women, despite their significant contributions throughout the centuries.
To assess the situation of women and propose measures to help eradicate discrimination, the United Nations began convening world conferences on women. The first World Conference on Women was held in Mexico in 1975, and the last was held in Beijing in 1995. In 2000, a review of recent agreements took place in New York City, where it was found that no progress was made at the same speed in all countries. In some areas, such as reproductive health rights, there is a danger of retreat under pressure from fundamentalists. Many women’s organizations worldwide have been working for decades to secure equal rights and a more just and united world. These organizations, while positively contributing to the MDGs, also denounce the apparent absence of topics such as sexual and reproductive rights, violence against women, and women’s labor rights. Any group working to transform society and make it more just must keep in mind the importance of advancing the rights of girls and women. Education is a key tool for achieving equality of opportunity between men and women and supporting the empowerment of women.
Goal 4: Reduce Child Mortality
Infant mortality is one of the biggest problems in poor countries, so Goal 4 aims to reduce the mortality of children under 5 years by two-thirds. Almost 50% of children who die before age 5 were born in sub-Saharan Africa. In rich countries, the infant mortality rate is 1%. The contrast is undoubtedly enormous. One of the keys is poverty. The infant mortality rate is a sensitive indicator of changes occurring in society. Socio-economic factors directly affect the survival chances of infants and the responsiveness of health services. Additionally, lower accessibility to these services for low-income communities exacerbates the issue. In poor countries, the chance of dying before age 5 increases significantly with larger family sizes and poverty levels. Each year in the Americas, over 250,000 children die before age 5 from easily preventable diseases, primarily diarrhea, pneumonia, malnutrition, and other preventable conditions. However, there is hope in knowing that this situation can be reversed with a more equitable distribution of wealth.
Goal 5: Improve Maternal Health
The Millennium Development Goals aim to reduce the maternal mortality rate by three-quarters by 2015. This requires specific maternal health care and community support for mothers or expectant mothers. In many countries, pregnancy and childbirth pose serious risks to women, situations that were unknown in Europe until the early twentieth century. Childbirth, once a major risk event for mothers, is still common in poor countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.
While health care delivery is crucial, it is not the whole problem: mothers need community support before and after childbirth, as children are totally dependent for years. Alleviating poverty for affected families and providing free community services is essential to ensuring maternal health.
Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria, and Other Diseases
The main objective of Goal 6 is to halt and begin to reverse the spread of AIDS and significantly reduce the incidence of malaria and tuberculosis. These conditions significantly affect large segments of the global population, crossing countries, regions, and continents, and are considered pandemics. Malaria, AIDS, and other epidemics particularly affect poor countries and hamper their development potential.
In Europe or the United States, episodes of tuberculosis or malaria are anecdotal, and AIDS is becoming, thanks to expensive treatments, a chronic illness that is serious but not necessarily fatal. As we see, all the MDGs are interconnected. The common vector is poverty (Goal 1), which is linked to the lack of treatments to alleviate the pandemic in developing countries. No education plan (Goal 2) can cope with a population decimated by disease and the need to seek a livelihood. Women, as highlighted in Goal 3, are especially vulnerable to contracting AIDS in countries with poor health standards. Diseases are the leading cause of child mortality (Goal 4) in poor countries.
Goal 7: Ensure Environmental Sustainability
The commitment sought from Goal 7 is to incorporate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programs. This includes reducing by half the proportion of people without access to drinking water. The environmental crisis is not just a concern of minority groups; it resembles the early 70s when the environmental movement was born. The scientific community agrees that we are at a critical time where the effects of human activities on the environment are already affecting our lives and will continue to do so in the future. A report by over 1,300 experts from 95 countries to the United Nations Program for Environment aims to guide managers in making decisions. The report warns that in the past 50 years, humans have changed ecosystems more quickly and intensely than at any other time in human history, which is a dangerous experiment. Any progress made in achieving the goals of eradicating poverty and hunger, improving health, and protecting the environment will likely not be sustained if the resources of the ecosystems on which humanity relies continue to deteriorate.
Goal 8: Promote International Development Cooperation
Goal 8 of the MDGs focuses on creating and promoting international support initiatives, such as implementing measures to address the external debt problem of poor countries, increasing official development assistance that funds many local and regional development projects, and enhancing communication and cooperation between countries to address the challenges of inequality and effectively respond to humanitarian emergencies recurrently affecting the world’s poorest regions. Mankind has, at the beginning of this century, the economic and technological resources to solve essential problems like hunger in the world. It also has the resources to combat poverty and mitigate the massive impact of diseases that are decimating populations, such as AIDS in Africa.
3. Do You Think That It Will Be Achieved? Justify Your Answer.
It will be a little tricky because these are very difficult targets, but nothing is impossible.
4. Pick One and Study It in Depth.
Macro Range 1: Eradicate Extreme Hunger and Poverty
The Lao People’s Democratic Republic and Myanmar are examples where children suffer from hunger. In developing countries, 28 percent of young children are underweight and receive inadequate food, despite the progress made in the 1990s. In 2000, in sub-Saharan Africa, more than 30 percent of children under five were underweight. In South Asia, one in three children suffers from malnutrition, and in some areas of Cambodia, the situation is dire.
This is undoubtedly the most ambitious of all the Millennium Development Goals, as it is present in one way or another in the other goals. Today, hunger and poverty are the major problems facing our world. Approximately 923 million people live in extreme poverty (less than a dollar a day), compared to 1,250 million in 1990. If the drop continues at the current rate, the target could be achieved by 2015. However, the reduction of extreme poverty around the world is mainly due to economic growth in East and Southeast Asia. By continent, South Asia, with 29.5% of its population, and sub-Saharan Africa, with 41.1%, despite having registered a significant decline in the percentage of people in extreme poverty, are still areas where many people face this problem daily. On the other hand, the reduction of poverty has brought with it an increase in inequality, especially in the area that has driven this reduction in East Asia. However, the highest levels of inequality continue to occur in Latin America and the Caribbean and sub-Saharan Africa. The case of hungry people in the world has also seen a global decline. However, this decline has been slow in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, making it unlikely to achieve the target of reducing the number of hungry people in the world by 2015.
Challenges for Meeting the Target
Currently, there is more than enough technology and production capacity to provide food for all mankind; the real problem lies in access and the distribution of wealth, resources, markets, and knowledge. The agricultural sector is key to reducing hunger and extreme poverty. In developing countries, agriculture is the productive sector that employs most of the population. While rich countries impose the opening of markets in developing countries, agricultural products from these countries cannot compete in the markets of rich countries due to existing tariffs and subsidies. Not enough resources are allocated to rural development and agriculture by developing countries, and the amount of Official Development Assistance (ODA) aimed at agriculture, forestry, and fisheries has increased. Natural disasters are increasingly frequent, and armed conflicts affect a percentage ranging between 5 and 10% of hungry people worldwide, in addition to increasing the number of people facing food emergencies.
Lidia Bonilla 2 ยบ D Valdivia