The World Bank has promised to assist Nigeria and other developing countries to achieve the Millenium Development Goals(MDGs) by 2015.
Speaking during the Fourth Organisation for Economic and Development World Meeting in New Delhi, India, the bank’s Vice President, Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Mr Octaviano Canuto said the bank was on track to achieve MDGs in three years to foster growth globally.
The theme of the fourm is: Beyond 2015: The future of development goals.
Canuto said the aim of the forum was to reduce poverty to the barest minimum in countries, arguing that poverty was ravaging many nations.
He said: For the first time since poverty trends began to be monitored, poverty and extreme poverty rates have fallen in every developing region, including sub-Saharan Africa, where rates are highest. Globally, extreme poverty is down to 22 per cent, from 52 per cent 30 years ago. Despite a 35 per cent population increase, fewer people live in extreme poverty today than 30 years ago. MDGs One, the global poverty reduction target, was met in 2010, five years ahead of the 2015 deadline.
Poverty surveys indicate that by 2010, the global poverty rate was less than half of its 1990 level.
“With regard to gender equality, we have made great strides in women’s endowments, capabilities, and rights, particularly on health and education. Our progress is commendable, and the first set of MDGs has, undoubtedly, served as an important catalyst for the development community to focus support on poverty reduction and improvements in human development. The energy they generated around development efforts attracted attention from governments and civil society alike, which in turn translated into greater resource flows.”
Unfortunately, not everyone has shared in this prosperity. In Sub-Saharan Africa, only 61% of the poverty target was reached, and in fragile and conflict-affected states, only 53%. In fact, few fragile and conflict-affected states have met even a single target. Women’s economic opportunities and rights are still lagging: 44 countries still restrict the working hours of women relative to men, and 71 limit the industries in which women can work.
In at least 47 countries, women are restricted in their ability to get a job, sign a contract, register a business, open a bank account, be the head of the household, or choose where to live. So while we’ve made headway, it is simply not enough to make progress in most countries but not in fragile states, or to help millions escape poverty but fail to reach the most marginalized, or move towards gender equality in only some areas. We need to step up our efforts in this final stretch to the 2015 deadline.”
He said the bank is learning from the past be designing an effective post-2015 MDGs framework, ading that efforts are being made to reflect on
how best to tackle our world’s challenges as its appraoching 2015.
“Going forward, this is our chance to design a post-2015 framework that builds on our successes, draws lessons from past shortcomings, addresses the gaps in the current MDGs, and most importantly, aims higher across the board.
For the new goals to act as a catalytic force for transformation in developing countries and empowerment of the poor, they must be truly universal, indivisible, complementary, and inclusive.
With over one billion people still living in extreme poverty, and poverty reduction significantly behind target for 2015 in many countries, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa and in fragile and conflict-affected states, accelerating progress towards the effective eradication of poverty must remain a primary goal for the international community. It is time to focus resources on those who need them the most and the hardest to reach groups. True progress goes beyond growth to include equity – in fact, the absence of equity considerations in the current MDGs has been widely criticized – because inequalities may not only hinder our steps forward but also erode what we have already accomplished. Setting ambitious objectives for ourselves in terms of both social inclusion and economic security will ensure that no one is left out this time around.” he added.
