Are the Millennium Development Goals
Feasible?
-Jan Vandemoortele
Poverty has many faces; it means going
hungry, not being able to send your child to school or not knowing how to read and write,
not having access to safe drinking water, not being able to visit a healthy center when
ill. Poverty is also about insecurity, voicelessness and being excluded socially. The
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) express key dimensions of human development in a set
of numerical and time-bound poverty reduction targets. They include halving income-poverty
and hunger; achieving universal primary education and gender equality; reducing under-five
mortality by two-third and maternal mortality by three-quarters; reversing the spread of
HIV/AIDS; and halving the proportion of people without access to safe water. These targets
are to be achieved by 2015, the comparison point being 1990 levels.
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan
has asked UN Development Programme (UNDP) Administrator Mark Malloch Brown, in his
capacity as chair of the UN Development Group, to serve as "scorekeeper" and
"campaign manager" for the MDGs; to keep the eyes of the world on them. This is
a priority within UNDP’s overarching mission to assist developing countries in
reducing poverty.
UNDP is an advocate for nationally-owned
solutions to reduce poverty through action rooted in strong partnerships and inclusive
participation. It sponsors innovative pilot projects; supports poverty monitoring and
analysis at the country level; provides policy advice ; and it shares knowledge of good
practices. UNDP also connects countries to global knowledge networks and promotes equity
and gender equality in the quest to alleviate poverty. It helps bring governments, civil
society organizations, private sector representatives and outside partners together to
achieve coordinated and effective responses to the poverty challenge.
It is often said that global targets are
easily set but seldom met. This begs the question of whether the MDGs are feasible.
Progress in over 130 developing countries regarding the many dimensions of human
development – such as education, health, nutrition and income- is difficult to
summarize. The 1990s saw many success stories, including in relation to education in
Guinea and Malawi; HIV/AIDS IN Senegal, Thailand and Uganda; child mortality in Bangladesh
and Gambia; nutrition in Indonesia, Mexico and Tunisia; and income-poverty in China.
But for each success story, there have been
setbacks. The under-five mortality rate rose in Cambodia, Kenya, Malawi and Zambia –
an unprecedented trend after decades of steady decline. The primary school enrolment ratio
dropped in Cameroon, Lesotho, Mozambique and Tanzania. The gender gap in primary education
widened in Eritrea, Ethiopia and Namibia. Instead of decreasing, malnutrition grew in
Burkina Faso and Yemen. Access to water became more difficult for millions of people;
Bangladesh faced a major problem with arsenic water poisoning. In the 1990s, numerous
countries saw their HIV prevalence rate double, triple, quadruple, in some cases even
increase 10-fold- severely undermining the feasibility of reaching most MDGs, in health
and beyond.
There is no good reason why universal primary
education should bot yet be a practical reality.
MDG reporting: a new mandate
The UN system is supporting national efforts
to prepare MDG – progress reports at the country level. Their main purpose is to go
beyond informing specialists and officials by bringing key development issues to the
attention of a much wider public through concise, readable, jargonfree information. This
is an ambitious task, involving media-savvy communications and camping experts who know
how to distil complex realities into succinct messages.
Surveying the bigger picture at present, of
seven MDG targets for which reasonably reliable global data exist, six are off tract.
Current data on global poverty, based on the norm of US$1 per day, are simply not robust
enough to make an informed judgement as to whether the world is on track to meeting the
2015 targets.
Little or no progress has been achieved in
reversing the HIV/AIDS pandemic; HIV prevalence rates continue to rise in numerous
countries. Only a few have succeeded in reducing the spread of HIV, as Cambodia and Uganda
have done. In many countries, failure to contain the pandemic threatens to halt and even
reverse progress in relation to other MDGs while placing additional strains on social
service delivery and available resources.
Progress has been slow as regards targets for
child mortality, basic education, malnutrition, maternal mortality and gender
discrimination in primary enrolment. In each of these cases progress amounted to about
one-quarter or less of the agreed targets between 1990 and 2000. Since the MDGs are to be
achieved between 1990 and 2015, 40 percent of the road should have been covered by 2000.
Only a fifth of the education target was achieved in the first 10 years, leaving 80
percent to be covered in 60 percent of the time period between 2000 and 2015. No matter
what the challenge is – HIV/AIDS, child mortality, malnutrition, income-poverty,
maternal health, gender discrimination or environmental degradation – basic education
is a central part of the solution failure to keep the promise to give each and every child
a good basic education will undermine the chances of reaching the other MDGs.
There is no good reason why universal primary
education should not yet be practical reality. Progress towards that goal is truly
discouraging; its global cost is perfectly affordable; no new technology breakthroughs are
needed to get all children in Scholl; there is consensus that it makes good economic
sense; and basic education is a fundamental human right that ought not to be denied to any
child. But if these conditions are insufficient to ensure success, then the question
arises: what will it take to meet the other MDGs?
The road ahead
The only target that is on track is the one
for halving the proportion of people without access to safe water by 2015. However, the
current rate of progress may not be sustainable; countless countries face acute water
shortages in the near further is no swift and decisive action is taken son. Wastage,
population growth, urbanization and desertification are gradually leading to looming water
scarcity in many parts of the world; industrialization and modern agriculture are adding
to the risk of more water pollution. Future conflicts over allocation of fresh water
resources are likely to slow down progress in the years to come.
Not only has global progress been inadequate,
but much of it has bypassed the poor. There are different ways for reaching a global or
national target. At one extreme, it can be achieved by improving the situation of the
already better-off segments of society- a top-down approach. At the other extreme, a
target can be achieved by improving the situation of the worse-off population. The
evidence suggests that most countries come closer to following the top-down rather than
the latter bottom-up approach.
While the MDGs remain unfulfilled, they also
remain feasible and affordable. Committed leadership, stronger partnerships, extra
resources, and deeper participation by the poor can bring the world back on track towards
the MDGs. UNDP will continue to harness national and international political commitment to
long-term strategies for reducing poverty and achieving the MDGs.
As matters stand, while the world is not on
track to meeting the MDG targets there remains the haunting question that Nelson Mandela
has raised: "Will our legacy be more than a series of broken promises?" Two
decade ago, James Grant, the late Executive Director of the UN Children’s Fund put
the essential challenge this way: "The problem is not that we have tried to eradicate
global poverty and failed; the problem is that no serious and concerted attempt has ever
been made."
If these words still ring true today, they
cannot be allowed to remain so. It is not too late to realize the dream by 2015.
The author, Jan Vandemoortele is
Principal Adviser and Group Leader of UNDP’s Socio-economic Development Group. Text
courtesy: Choices September 2002. UNDP Kathmandu, Nepal.
German Intellectual Discusses on
globalization : Opening Up Our View of the World
Power and powerlessness in the age of
globalization. Brigitte Neumann talks with sociologist Ulrich Beck
Ulrich Beck teaches as professor of sociology
at Munich University and is one of the world’s most renowned social scientists. He
became known outside specialist circles as a result of his book "Risk Society:
Towards a New Modernity." Ulrich Beck has been focusing on the subject of
globalization for many years.
When it comes to the subject of
globalization, you are considered the "first expert" on this trend, someone who
is viewed very critically in Germany not only by people on the left, but also by
conservatives. To what extent are we already living in a globalized world here in Germany?
You could say that we are living in an
internally globalized country. In many respects, globalization is frequently understood to
be something that takes place "outside," that is considered an additional
dimension to be taken into account. The question I find interesting, however, is: how far
are we globalizing ourselves internally? In Germany, one in six weddings now lead to
binational marriages. And more and more babies are not living under homogeneous parenthood
conditions, but have binational parents. These are indicators of the fact that we now have
world cultures present in our own house. That means we are already globalized or live in a
transnational way to a much greater extent than we admit in public discussion.
Accordingly, globalization is not only something that will concern and threaten us in the
future, but something that is taking place in the present and to which we must first open
our eyes. We must become accustomed to the idea that the reality we are dealing with is a
transnational or a cosmopolitan reality, in which cultures are recombining and in which
the boundaries we still assume to exist have already been at least partially swept away.
Globality means that everyday life is permeated by the perception of global problems. In
their daily lives, people can see they are affected by questions that do not only relate
to one location, but affect civilization as a whole. We do not yet have the solutions to
these questions, but the awareness that we live in an endangered world is present in more
and more life situations.
We understand a globalized world to
mean an economically globalized world or a politically globalized world. However, one
suspicion comes to the fore – especially in this time of war against terror –
namely, the suspicion that the word "globalization" might just be a more
agreeable way of denoting the global supremacy of the superpower United States. What do
you get when you think the idea of globalization through to its logical conclusion?
Don’t you end up with the domination of the world by the most powerful?
No. Global conditions are far too complex to
be able to imagine that they could ever be really controlled by one power. We are dealing
with an overcomplex and thoroughly contingent world – contingent in the sense that we
make decisions that have consequences which no one can know in advance. In the final
analysis, terror is also another proof of the fact that the superpower is not really a
superpower. It was vulnerable. This experience actually means the very opposite: the
largest military power was unable to stop such a sensitive attack and will be unable to
rule out such a possibility in the future. Precisely this is the background to the United
States’ military interventions. And the terror itself is an example of the
world’s uncontrollability. The idea that we can filter out and exclude the terrorists
by upgrading our equipment, installing radar screens, implementing total controls –
not only at airports, but eventually also in supermarkets and in all institutions –
is an example of how an ideal vision of control probably achieves the very opposite.
Although implementing such measures will undermine – and possibly even stifle –
our liberties, these measures will not lead to the security we seek to achieve. The world
has become so complex that the idea of a power in which everything comes together and can
be controlled in a centralized way is now erroneous.
Would you say that the attacks of
September 11th have promoted this cosmopolitan view? Don’t we now all devote a little
more attention to the wider world than we did in the past?
This is partly so, and partly not. Initially,
the horrific images of September 11th triggered an enormous wave of solidarity. In foreign
policy terms, the world began to move. And for a while it was said that the military
option was just one among many. You have to seek dialogue, you have to seek agreement.
Western countries in particular can today no longer be separated from Muslim societies,
because they have them within themselves. They are themselves internally globalized. And
therefore we must seek dialogue in this networked world. We must ask which voice was
actually attempting to make itself heard and saw no other possibility of gaining a
hearing. To that extent, for a while this also represented a forced opening of a
cosmopolitan view. But it then very soon became clear that the response of a war against
terrorism, initially conceived of in a metaphorical sense, began to be taken increasingly
seriously and came to entail waging a real war. However, at the beginning, it did not
involve a war in the usual sense at all. You cannot make peace with terrorists. The normal
dividing lines between war and peace do not apply. At the same time there were no
identifiable opponents in uniform. They were to be found everywhere. Precisely this is
what globalization implies: this network-like web of terrorism. That was what was so
frightening. In the first instance, therefore, global terrorism created a kind of global
community sharing a common fate, something we had previously considered impossible. But
this represented a "moment of decision," an occasion to take decisions that
could be applied in very diverse ways. Incidently, I regret the fact that the European
position, which can indeed be summed up in the maxim "make law, not war," was
not more clearly expressed, also in geopolitical terms.
However, you yourself have also experienced
how difficult it can be to achieve understanding between cultures. I’m referring to
the time, before September 11th, when you opened an international conference on
cosmopolitanism in Helsinki.
That was the first major social sciences
conference at which social scientists from all cultures wanted to reach a consensus on
whether we can continue to pursue a national course in the social sciences or whether we
need a cosmopolitan path that also connects us in a new way. I was therefore totally
surprised at the controversy it provoked and the dramatic opposition I met with from
intellectuals from South America, the Arab countries, and other regions of the South. In
the course of our debate it became clear that these researchers based their arguments on
two experiences. The first is that all our talk of globalization and open borders does not
apply to them. When they come to Europe, they are confronted by still closed borders.
Thus, the concept of open borders is a very selective concept, one that is not taken
seriously at all in the experience of non-Europeans. And the second thing is that they see
themselves as the losers of globalization. They see themselves as those who are forced to
bear all the risks of globalization. For example, European countries have still not yet
really opened up their borders to products from these countries, something that is
fundamental. Therefore, double standards prevail. And then there was a third point that
demonstrated that these scholars no longer wish to submit to new interpretations from the
centre. In their view, cosmopolitanism seems to be a renewed attempt by western
imperialism, which now ingeniously promotes the idea of difference but ultimately only
represents a variation of what they have always experienced in the past, namely that the
latest ideas of the modern era are developed in European centres while they are the ones
who have to implement them. And it also became clear that these conditions of inequality
and historical injustice have given rise to a feeling of hate in the world – a deeply
felt hate that cannot easily be overcome with a few good words.
What do you need to cope with
globalization?
You need education. You need subsistence
protection. We need jobs and social security. These are preconditions under which it will
perhaps be possible to deal with these complex circumstances. If they are also under
threat, however, things become difficult. That was the experience in the 20th century
when, for example, the great depression of the 1930s cut the ground from under
people’s feet. I believe that we are once again facing a development of this kind and
are unable to say with any precision when people can continue to cope with this complexity
and contingency. It is not the case that they are returning to the old certainties and
that renationalization or reethnicization will become responses to the challenge of
globalization. Another political alternative would be the recognition of the true value of
international cooperation. Relinquishing apparent national sovereignty does not have to
entail a loss of national sovereignty, but can actually be a benefit. Environmental
problems, unemployment – all these issues cannot be resolved alone. They require at
least European, possibly even broader, solutions. The idea that you surrender your
identity when you relinquish national powers is unhelpful. No, indeed, precisely the
opposite is the case: if done in an intelligent way, you attain the sovereignty to better
solve national problems in cooperation with others.
A diversity of cultures, an element
of provinciality, is what characterizes the identity of Europe. What will happen if this
diversity disappears as a result of the globalization process? For example, it is easier
to eat Arabic, Asian or even fast food in Paris than French cuisine. Does it matter if
Europe’s diversity fades away under the dictate of globalization?
Let me give you an example. I love retsina, a
resin-flavoured wine from Greece. It’s a wine, however, that doesn’t meet
European standards precisely because of the resins it contains. The resin content has to
be reduced so that it can be sold and therefore consumed on the European market. This is a
terrible development. "Save retsina!" should be our reply to Europe. Save
diversity, save difference! Save the niche we have, provinciality! That is what makes
Europe. That is also the foundation of a cosmopolitan Europe. Nonetheless, we continue to
be obsessed with finding or inventing a European nation which, as in the nation state,
guarantees homogeneity and thus an appropriate form of democracy and centralized
government. I believe that this is not only wrong, not only impossible, but that it is
also undesirable. Europe itself is an embodiment of this diversity. Nevertheless, there
are strong tendencies to achieve homogeneity – not only in the political realm, but
also on the market: it now doesn’t matter whether you go shopping in Paris, Munich or
London, you’ll always find the same shops and the same products. Strong ties with a
particular place, the fact that something flourishes there and has a special smell or
taste – all this is being lost. I believe that represents a danger. We are at a
crossroads. That’s why it’s important to revive the tradition of
cosmopolitanism. |
