International   

Anti-poverty targets in Africa will not be met, says U.N.

Larry Elliott

London: The whole of sub-Saharan Africa — the poorest region of the world — will fail to meet the goals set seven years ago for eradicating global poverty by 2015 — the United Nations warned on Monday.

In a progress report at the halfway point to the target date for hitting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the U.N. said the world was failing in the battle to combat hunger, cut infant mortality and put every child in school. “The results presented in this report suggest that there have been some gains and that success is still possible in most parts of the world,” U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said. “But they also point to how much remains to be done.”

Boosted by the economic progress in China and India, the U.N. said the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day had fallen from 23.4 per cent in 1999 to 19.2 per cent and the world was on track to hit the 15.8 per cent target for 2105. However, the 23.4 per cent benchmark for Africa would not be met.

Slower progress had been made on halving the number of children under five who are underweight from the 33 per cent in 1990. The percentage has come down to 27 per cent, with 46 per cent of under-fives in Africa registered as underweight. Infant mortality is down by one sixth, against the U.N.’s target of a two-thirds cut.

Although the U.N. has a target of universal primary education, it said 30 per cent of children in sub-Saharan Africa and 12 per cent globally were out of school.

In health, the number of people living with AIDS had risen six-fold to 40 million since 2001 The U.N. study coincided with a report from the British charity WaterAid which said attempts to hit the MDGs were being hampered by under-investment in clean water and proper sanitation.

WaterAid warned Britain and the other big donors that investment in health and education would be undermined if almost 5,000 children a day continued to die from diarrhoea and miss school to fetch water. —

Guardian Newspapers Limited 2007

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Stories in this Section

Pakistan apex court takes government to task
Two doctors held in U.K. bomb plot
Rajapaksa’s appeal to Bhagwati
Anti-poverty targets in Africa will not be met, says U.N.
Tide begins to turn for U.K.’s flooded villages
Mugabe invited to Lisbon summit despite European Union ban
Spain reveals nuclear contaminated land
Diana celebrated
India for coal sector tie-up with Australia
U.S. Government still a “killing machine”: Castro

Copyright © 2007, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu