The millennium development goals

It´s always difficult to talk about an issue like this, but even more so if we do so from the other side of the coin. Talking about the most disadvantaged people on the planet sitting in front of a laptop and connected to the internet is not the most honest. One can feel like a hypocrite.

More than 10 years have passed since the leaders of the world established objectives and goals to free humanity of extreme poverty, hunger, illiteracy and disease. These were called Millennium Development Goals with deadline in 2015. So far there has been progress, but there is still a long way to go, all under the watchful eye of the United Nations.

I´m going to focus my post which is certainly the most disadvantaged area of the world, sub-Saharan Africa. Despite, some notable improvements in the last decade in regards to education (18%), reduction of Malaria (20%, malaria), HIV (19%) and availability of drinking water (+ 50%), this region is still the poorest in the world. (Dark blue area)

The 8 goals that this project wants to achieve are:

1-Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger: Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than $1 a day.

2-Achieve universal primary education: Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling.

3-Promote gender equality and empower women: Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and in all levels of education no later than 2015.

4-Reduce child mortality: Reduce by two thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the underfive mortality rate.

5-Improve maternal health: Reduce by three quarters, between 1990 and 2015, the

maternal mortality ratio.

6-Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases: Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS and malaria.

7-Ensure environmental sustainability: Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes and reverse the loss of environmental resources.

8-Develop a global partnership for development.

All these measures are intended to cover the minimun capabilities of each person in the world, so that they can live with dignity. Health, education and minimum incomes are the basic pillars for the personal development of the individual. Then, we will see how sub-Saharan Africa in these 3 areas over the past years has evolved. However, we should take into account the difficulty to obtain reliable data in this region, where there is an inconsistent structure for good information.

INCOMES- The 51% of people living on less than $1.25 per day and although it has fallen by 7% since 2005 is the worst region of the planet. Its evolution hasn´t been great as in other countries where they have further improved. One of the main reasons are vulnerable jobs, which are characterized by informal labour contracts, lack of adequate social protection, low salaries and difficult working conditions. This type of employment is that has increased in Africa. It has also contributed financial and economic crisis, so that rich countries have “invested” less money, which has led to a reduction in trade and a slowdown of global growth. Death by malnutrition is the main consequence of not having income. In sub-Saharan Africa more than 35% of the population it is “hungry”. It´s estimated that this region won´t reach the goal by 2015.

EDUCATION – In this section, sub-Saharan Africa has undergone a great change. It has gone from 76% to 58% in the last 10 years in it refers to enrolment in primary education for children. It´s the highest percentage at the global level. However, it remains somewhat relative. There are 32 million children without education, 50% of total, 67 million children in the world.  Unfortunately, they are still 47 millions of young people in the region who can´t read and write. In this section we could talk about equality of opportunity between men and women for access to education. According to reflect the data, this makes no more sense when millions and millions of children who may not have a minimum education. Gender doesn´t care, there are no opportunities for anyone. LOOK AT THIS SITE

HEALTH – Certainly, in this section is where this region, despite the reduction in deaths, is far from the rest. It is chilling to think that 129 children of every 1000 ones will die before their fifth birthday. All, this despite the fact that this figure has dropped from 180 to 129 in recent years. All of the 31 countries with under-five mortality of at least 100 deaths per 1,000 live births, except Afghanistan, are in sub-Saharan Africa. Diarrhea (bad nutrition and lack of water), malaria and pneumonia are responsible for more than half the deaths of children under five. Improving the health of mothers is the other great objective. 87% is the number of deaths globally due mainly to the lack of education and lack of health care primarily focuses in this region.  For those that exceed the two previous situations, the future not to hold them much joy. Life expectancy is low mainly due to the disease of AIDS and Malaria. Malaria, which causes the death of children, 90% of deaths. With regard to AIDS, it must not comment much. The graph is explained by itself.

In my opinion all these problems are the same, education, health and money. It´s a kind of circle that they interconnect in such a way that it´s impossible to improve one of the three issues if not improve at the same time the other two.

As I said at the beginning of the post, it´s not fair to speak from our position. Surely, if I open the closet I would find some clothes made from cotton of one of these countries. Those fields that do not want to fumigate to not spoil the quality of the cotton and thus feeding the Malaria disease. Somehow or another, everyone who lives here “up” are responsible for what happens there “down”.

Jonathan Cabrero Sánchez.

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