By Chengetai Madziwa – SANF 04 no 27
Zambia has launched its Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 2003 progress report, aimed at generating dialogue around the setting of national targets.
“The MDG report is the first to assess Zambia’s progress and prospects towards achieving the MDGs in Zambia,” said Aeneas Chuma, UN Resident Coordinator in Zambia. The preparation of the report is in line with the UN guidelines on MDG country reports, which advocates for the principles of ownership and capacity development.
Zambia together with 190 other countries signed the Millennium Declaration at the United Nations Millennium Summit in September 2000, which represented dedication towards addressing and eventually overcoming the country’s human development challenges.
The MDGs are a set of goals aimed at reducing poverty through time-bound and measurable targets to be achieved by 2015.
Eighteen numerical targets corresponding to the goals have been prepared by the UN to ensure a common assessment and understanding of the status of MDGs at the global, regional and national levels.
These targets have been embraced by the African Union (AU) as part of its long-term development framework, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), and by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) within its Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (RISDP) – the regional development blueprint, launched in Arusha by the SADC chairperson President Benjamin Mkapa.
The Zambia report assesses 10 targets set for 2015 as follows:
- the elimination of gender disparity in primary and secondary education;
- full completion of primary school by all boys and girls;
- reduction by two-thirds of the under-five mortality rate;
- halting and reversing of the spread of HIV and AIDS;
- halting and reversing of the incidence of malaria and other major diseases;
- integration of principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes and reversing the loss of environmental resources;
- halving the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation;
- halving the proportion of people living in extreme poverty;
- halving the proportion of people who suffer from hunger; and
- reducing by three-quarters the maternal mortality ratio.
Of the ten targets assessed, one (elimination of gender disparity in education) can probably be achieved by 2015, says the press release on the launch.
Latest findings show that Zambia has almost reached parity among girls and boys in primary and secondary school. Available figures show that there is a narrow gap between representation of boys and girls relative to their respective age groups in school.
Although potential exists for achieving six of the ten targets, the remaining three, namely halving poverty, proportion of people who suffer from hunger and reducing the maternal mortality ratio, cannot be achieved if the supportive environment is not strengthened.
The UN resident coordinator said given these results, Zambia is committed to strengthening the MDGs campaign process through further sensitization, putting the goals within the local context and costing them.
The Zambian government, working with civil society, is committed to sensitisation of the general public on what MDGs are. Localising of the goals will be done through countrywide consultative meetings to set Zambia’s own MDGs targets for 2015. Key in this activity of national target setting is finding a balance between ambition and realism.
The MDGs costing exercise will be embarked upon to provide government and its cooperating partners with tools for resource mobilisation and priority setting in the national budgeting process.
In addition, the Zambian government aims at consolidating macroeconomic stability “in order to enhance confidence among the private sector and our cooperating partners who are the key players in bringing about sustainable economic growth and poverty reduction,” said the country’s Minister of Finance and National Planning, Ng’andu Magande, at the launch.
For Zambia as well as other SADC countries, the MDGs synthesise the countries’ own long term objectives to reduce poverty. However, according to SADC, at a regional level the reduction in poverty achieved so far through poverty reduction strategies is not in tandem with the MDGs.
About 40 percent of the population in the region is living on less than US$1 per day. Poverty reduction thus remains a challenge in the region requiring intense commitment by national governments and the region as a whole. (SARDC)
