RP needs more poverty-alleviation steps to meet UN millennium goals

THE United Nations urged the Aquino administration to implement more poverty-alleviation measure, apart from creating more jobs if the Philippines is to meet the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

While it is important for the current administration to curb unemployment and underemployment, poverty-alleviation and social-protection programs are needed to meet the “endangered” MDG 1 or the goal on poverty and hunger, UN Resident Coordinator Jacqui Badcock said in a statement.

The government should also be ready to provide opportunities to empower low-income households and enable them to earn from informal economic activities, UN Millennium Campaign acting director Minar Pimple said.

These new programs must be included in a five-year breakthrough plan which President Aquino will present to the UN General Assembly in September. If the plan is implemented successfully, Badcock said Philippines still has a chance to meet the MDGs by 2015.

“While the government aims to curb the unemployment rate, we will also advocate for other poverty-alleviation measures such as livelihood projects and the continuation of some of the Philippines’s strong social-protection programs,”  Badcock said.

“We are very optimistic that an MDG Breakthrough Plan will be developed in time for the 2010 summit and that this plan will be based on honesty and good governance. If this is in place, we are confident that five years is enough to make the MDGs happen in the Philippines and for the President to herald their achievements by the target date of 2015,” she said.

The MDG breakthrough plan consists of the best practices, achievements, and action items to address the challenges that derailed progress in some MDG areas and fast-track their achievement in the remaining five years before the 2015 deadline.

The UN said Mr. Aquino’s inaugural speech “holds great promise.” The UN agreed with the President’s plan to level the playing field for investors by eradicating bureaucracy, providing emergency employment to Filipinos, and strengthening the government’s vocational and technical education.

The MDG targets that the country may not be able to meet include the poverty goal, or MDG 1, which was already regarded as an “endangered” MDG and achieving universal primary education or MDG 2.

The UN said data showed one-third of the population or 33 percent of all Filipinos still live on less than $1 a day. This was attributed to the increase in the number of unemployed by 6.7 percent to 2.9 million in 2009 from 2.7 million in 2008.

The UN also said that achieving universal primary education is “least likely” to be achieved since the education sector is beset by problems, such as lack of classrooms and an increasing dropout and enrollment rate.

According to UN reports, Sulu, for example has the smallest percentage of children enrolled in public primary schools at 62 percent, compared to the national average of 81.7 percent.

The UN also cited data from the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) that the country’s dropout rate increased to 9 percent in 2007 from 8.6 percent in 2006. This was “very far” from the 2006 target of decreasing it to 5.5 percent and 2009 target of 4.3 percent.

“Efforts to promote primary education enrollment should be concentrated in identifiable high-priority regions, such as Sulu. However, an even bigger problem in the education situation is the increasing dropout rate in elementary levels,” Badcock said.

The MDGs are time-bound, concrete and specific goals that 189 world leaders committed to achieve for their nations by 2015 during the United Nations Summit in September 2000. These goals are: 1) end extreme poverty and hunger; 2) achieve universal primary education; 3) promote gender equality and empower women; 4) reduce child mortality; 5) improve maternal health; 6) combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; 7) ensure environmental sustainability and 8) develop a global partnership for development.  –Cai Ordinario, Businessmirror