MDG goal attainment ‘off track’–NEDA, UN

THE Philippines is no longer on track to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) by 2015, with the series of natural disasters undermining development efforts, the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) and the United Nations (UN) said.

Ramon Falcon, NEDA supervising economic development specialist said the country is “off-track” with regard to the following key measures: elementary participation and cohort survival rates, ratio of girls to boys in elementary and secondary level, maternal mortality ratio, and women and men practicing family planning or contraceptive prevalence rate.

“Due to unavailability or incompleteness of data in a number of regions, it was hard to assess the performance for HIV and AIDS and malaria,” Falcon said.

He said Zamboanga Peninsula Region and Mindoro, Marinduque, Romblon and Palawan have a low probability of meeting the MDG targets and should therefore be given priority attention.

About P480.8 billion, or 0.67 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) is needed to meet the targets for the period 2010 to 2015, the NEDA official said.

These estimates were done for poverty, basic education and health, HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, and water and sanitation.

An indicator of economic performance, GDP is the amount of final goods and services produced in the country.

“The high figures highlight the fact that the Philippines cannot be complacent and act as if it is business as usual. It is not likely that MDGs will be achieved unless additional resources are allocated and spent for MDG-related programs and projects,” Falcon said.

With six years to go before deadline, “the Philippines continues to lag behind on its targets to reduce poverty by year 2015, and the series of natural disasters further threatens development efforts,” Suneeta Muk-herjee, representative of United Nations Population Fund and UN Advocacy Group chair said.

The MDGs are eight time-bound goals aimed at significantly reducing, if not completely eradicating, extreme poverty by 2015. Of these goals, the Philippines lags behind in terms of eliminating poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, reducing maternal deaths, and combating HIV and AIDS.

“More than one-third of the population is still living on less that one dollar a day, over five million children are not in school, 93 newborn babies and 11 mothers are dying everyday, HIV and AIDS cases are growing, with the youth increasingly becoming more vulnerable, and environmental resources are depleting,” Mukherjee said

Leonor Briones of Social Watch Philippines said widespread measures need to be taken to minimize the impact of recurrent floods, droughts, and other hazards that further exacerbate the poverty situation.

“Life has been a calamity for 3.7 million Filipino families with no food, no education, and no health care.

The numbers are steadily increasing with the impacts of extreme weather conditions regularly happening nowadays,” Briones, a former national treasurer, said. –Darwin G. Amojelar, Senior Reporter, Manila Times