Dismal poverty reduction

THE anti-poverty program isn’t working.

That’s the verdict reached by two United Nations agencies, namely, the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction and the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, and the Aquino administration ought to listen to what they have to say.

The country’s performance in poverty reduction has been described as “dismal,” and it is likely to fail in meeting its Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) with barely three years into the deadline to achieve the objectives set by UN member-states, according to the UN agencies in a joint report.

The bad news for the Aquino administration is that, in so far as the UN is concerned, the Philippines is years behind in meeting most of its development objectives.

Of the seven MDGs, the Philippines obtained failing grades in four—eradicating extreme poverty, achieving universal primary education, reducing child mortality and sustaining maternal health.

On the other hand, it received favorable scores in gender equality, reducing tuberculosis (TB) and HIV-AIDS prevalence, and ensuring environmental sustainability.

The UN described as “regressing” and “no progress” the Philippines’s performance in education-related objectives, and “slow” in dealing with anti-poverty reduction, child mortality reduction, as well as maternal-health problems.

However, the country was cited for being an “early achiever” in gender equality, the campaign against TB and environmental issues like forest cover, protected areas and reducing carbon-dioxide emissions.

The Philippines was “on track” in other environment-related issues like basic sanitation and use of safe drinking water, it also said.

The UN report emphasized that inadequate disaster-mitigation efforts have been responsible in no small measure for the persistence of poverty.

The sad reality is that a significant part of our annual economic losses is mainly due to disasters.

Damage and losses in production associated with floods, typhoons, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and droughts adversely affect other MDGs, including eradicating poverty, while losses in infrastructure affect MDG 7, or ensuring environmental sustainability.

Thus, minimizing disaster risk is really essential for achieving sustainable development.

In concrete terms, this underscores the need to build up the capabilities of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council so that it can effectively perform its mandate of preventing losses from disasters, particularly by enhancing the resilience of communities and to protect various sectors most vulnerable to disasters, such as women, children, people with disabilities and the elderly.

The United Nations is right: The government should focus on development strategies that reduce exposure to hazards and invest more in disaster risk-reduction policies to achieve greater resilience against disasters. Otherwise, economic-development efforts will be a Sisyphean effort doomed to bring us back to square one with every disaster that comes our way. –BusinessMirror Editorial