More work to achieve MDG

Five years from now, President Noynoy will have to make the trip back to New York to give that final historic report of how his country fared on commitments to the Millennium Development Goals as agreed upon in 2001by all members of the United Nations and at least 23 international organizations.

It is certainly not going to be a walk in the park during the next years since five of the eight items in the agreed MDGs – or at least one or two targets in each of the goals – are at risk of not being met.

The MDG is a call to action based on the eight chapters of the UN Millennium Declaration that was signed in September of 2000. Each goal has a set of targets (total of 18), and each target has a set of quantifiable indicators.

The National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) is the official tally keeper, but even if there are some groups that contest the grade in some targets in the scorecard, there is a consensus on where we fail or excel.

Goal for education

The second goal, for example, which aims to ensure that by 2015, all children regardless of gender will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling, is at risk of not being met.

At present only three-fourths of children who enter the first grade are able to graduate elementary education. With just five years to go, reaching the goal seems an impossible task. The inability to meet this goal consequently affects the target of attaining full literacy for 15 to 24 year olds.

A good basic education is regarded as one of the weapons in fighting poverty, and consequently, contributing to a country’s capacity to raise its level of economic stature.

It goes without saying that the current statistics indicating a high dropout rate among grade school students is a problem that is closely linked to the first MDG goal, that of eliminating extreme hunger and poverty. Here, the Philippines has only a 50-50 chance of achieving this goal.

Other red marks

Other areas in the scorecard that are in danger of not being met involve the reduction of the number of women who die in childbirth, the use of contraceptives as a way of reducing HIV/AIDS, eliminating deaths due to tuberculosis, increasing the number of seats held by women in Congress, and eradicating measles among one-year-olds through immunization.

The country is hard put to achieve its goal for reducing maternal mortality by three quarters, not only because of the inadequate nutrition and care of many pregnant women, but also due to the lack of qualified health workers to supervise birthing.

Contraceptive use, condoms in particular, is an issue that the Church strongly opposes and which the government leadership, for political expediency, generally ignores. With this, there is a standstill in the campaign for safe sex.

Tuberculosis, on the other hand, is on the rise. It is not only an issue that is an offshoot of poverty and malnutrition, but also increasingly of a resistance to the traditional drugs because of inadequate or noncompliance to the medication therapy regimen.

Lastly, the Philippines is committed to bringing the number of women in Congress to half of its current number, largely in recognition of the fact that half of the country’s population is female. Only about a fifth of the current 274-strong membership in the House of Representatives is female.

Strong points

Overall, there is progress in achieving gender equality, with women empowerment on relatively strong footing. The country also has improved in managing infant mortality and deaths of children under five years of age, as well as in reversing the prevalence and deaths associated with malaria.

There have been positive results gained in the campaign to detect and cure tuberculosis using the health department’s recommended directly observed treatment short course.

High marks have also been gained in increasing land area covered by forests, and in decreasing the consumption of ozone-depleting CFCs. More people are now also benefiting from improved water sources, as well as improved sanitation facilities.

Challenge to do more

Compared to other countries, in particular, the sub-Sahara African states where the red flag is too big too ignore, the Philippines is not doing too badly. But neither is it doing great. The challenge to do more remains.

In fairness, efforts by the previous administration to reduce poverty levels had been significantly impeded by the global financial crisis. But that is the beauty of the eighth MDG, which enjoins governments of developed economies, international lending institutions, even drug companies to helping countries in need.

The Philippines did not exactly fall under the category of a least developed country, hence the small grant given by the Millennium Challenge Corp. for a poverty-alleviation assistance package worth $434 million (or P19 billion).

But more than the amount (some say it’s just a drop in the bucket), it reflects the growing confidence of other foreign aid agencies in the Philippines, not just to help us on move forward, but also to rid the country’s system of corruption.

Needless to say, we will need more funds to stamp out poverty and to raise income levels of half of Filipinos to more than $1 a day as stated in the first MDG.

Already, almost half of the MCC grant will go to rehabilitating 222 kilometers of road in impoverished Samar so that local farmers, fishermen and small businessmen will have better mobility. –We all know we have more Samars.

Rey Gamboa (The Philippine Star)

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