Maravi

Let’s be serious about MDGs

Let’s be serious about MDGs
By The Post
Sun 03 Oct. 2010, 04:00 CAT

The revelations by Mark Mushili, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) advocate in the Zambian Parliament, are very worrying. Mushili says we are far away, as a country, from meeting the MDG on poverty reduction and he doesn’t foresee that being achieved by the year 2015.

Mushili also bemoaned that Zambia’s representation at international fora on MDGs has remained irregular because of the uncoordinated manner in which the country is monitoring the progress on the MDGs. He also observed that poverty levels were still very high in Zambia. He reminded the nation that during the meeting that they had in Abuja, one of their resolutions was that they must kick out poverty at all costs and they unanimously accepted that there must not be any excuse whatsoever not to meet the MDGs, particularly the one on poverty reduction, by the year 2015.

But 10 years on from the original adoption of the MDGs at the 2000 millennium summit, we are still falling short in our achievement. The consequence of these shortfalls is that improvements in the lives of the poorest of our people are happening at an unacceptably slow pace and in some cases, hard-fought gains are being eroded. At our current pace, several of the eight MDGs and associated targets are likely to be missed.

Clearly, if we are to achieve the MDGs by 2015, not only must the level of financial investments be increased but innovative programmes and policies aimed at overall development and economic and social transformation must be rapidly scaled up and replicated. The MDGs are achievable, but there is clearly an urgent need to address challenges, acknowledge failures and try to overcome the obstacles to their achievement. This will certainly require the embracing of pioneering ideas and political will on the part of our government and our co-operating partners.

And we shouldn’t forget that the MDGs incorporate key goals and targets of the broader development agenda, agreed upon by world leaders and other stakeholders at different UN summits and conferences. Thus, the MDGs are not about extreme poverty only, but also include goals and targets for education, maternal health, child mortality, public health, environmental sustainability and biodiversity.

Extreme poverty is the most challenging issue facing our people today. It mocks our government’s claim to development and progress when men, women and children are still starving, continue to be vulnerable to HIV-infection, are forced to subsist in degraded environments, or are unable to exercise the most basic of their human rights. There are people in our country who each day cannot meet the basic needs necessary for a decent human life. It is a strict duty of justice and truth not to allow fundamental needs to remain unsatisfied. Economic and social justice requires that each individual has adequate resources to survive, to develop and thrive.

We must strengthen our collective resolve to confront the social inequalities that lock all too many of our people into poverty. If we set our priorities right and stand by them and our co-operating partners stand by their commitments, this poverty can be eradicated from the face of our country. We have to do something and produce more effective results because time is running out. Yes, we may not be receiving the aid we require. But aid is a catalyst, not a cure. No country has ever been transformed by aid alone. That is why it is also important that we take charge of our own development. This means mobilising domestic policies and resources to support the MDGs. It also means being fully accountable for development results, for the management of aid as well as domestic budgets and being totally transparent. And this is why our co-operating partners and many citizens of goodwill are extremely worried about our government’s attitude towards corruption. Those in charge of our government are today not only defending corruption and corrupt elements and helping them to go scot-free and keep their loot, but they are also devising laws that totally undermine accountability and honesty in public service. Their scheme to remove abuse of office from the Anti Corruption Commission Act will result in increased levels of corruption and diversion of public resources from MDGs.

We should all share the responsibility for ensuring success. Just as donors should be held accountable, we should also make sure that our own political leaders should also be accountable for the results they achieve. We owe this to all our people fighting to survive on less than a dollar a day or those who are simply living on the sun. We must act now to make MDGs a reality in our country by 2015. The existence of such large numbers of poor, hungry and under-nourished people constitutes an affront to all of us. A stable, permanent solution must be found to these serious problems.

As Mushili has correctly pointed out, the painful truth is that, despite the goals to eradicate it, poverty persists and tends to grow in our country. Hunger, poverty, disease, ignorance, unemployment, lack of opportunity, insecurity, inequality, hopelessness are the terms that could well define the living conditions of a great part of our country’s population.

The economic and social injustice implied in the gap between the living conditions of the highest strata in our country and the humble and poor masses of the great majority of our people is an affront to our collective conscience. It is an imperative need of our times to be aware of these realities, because of what a situation affecting the great majority of our people entails in terms of human suffering and the squandering of life and intelligence. The uneven income distribution in our country still subjects to unjust and discriminatory social relations the great majority of our people and indicates the need for deep essential changes in our political and social structures which will guarantee the broad majority of our people access to the benefits of every development policy. It is very dangerous to allow these inequalities to continue like this because underlying this reality is the fact that as citizens of this country, we are all passengers on the same vessel – this country where we all live. But the passengers on this vessel are travelling in very different conditions.

A trifling minority is travelling in luxurious cabins furnished with Internet, cellphones and access to global communication networks. They enjoy a nutritional, abundant and balanced diet as well as clean water supplies from boreholes and other council facilities. They have access to sophisticated medical care.

The overwhelming and suffering majority is travelling in conditions that are not even fit for swines. That is, over 70 per cent of the passengers on this vessel are crowded together in its dirty hold, suffering hunger, disease and helplessness.

Obviously, this vessel is carrying too much injustice to remain afloat, pursuing such an irrational and senseless route. It is our duty to take our rightful place at the helm and ensure that all passengers can travel in conditions of solidarity, equity and justice. We know that our country is too poor to give all our people great material wealth, but we can give them a sense of equality, of human dignity. And that is something worth fighting for.

Labels: MARK MUSHILI, MDGs

posted by MrK @ 1:23 PM