Bangladesh and the MDGs

The Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia addressed a high-level Plenary Summit on MDGs on September 14 and the 60th session of the UN General Assembly on September 17. In her speeches, Begum Zia highlighted Bangladesh's success in reaching the MDGs by 2015 as the country has already attained two out of the eight MDGs by reducing the gender gap in education and enhancing access to safe drinking water. The Bangladesh Prime Minister sought international support for the developing countries including Bangladesh to achieve the MDGs. Begum Zia also attended a seminar on poverty alleviation sponsored by the Clinton Initiative in New York on September 15.

The eight targets set for Bangladesh under the MDGs to be reached by 2015 are as follows:

(1) To reduce extreme poverty from 28 percent to 14 percent. (2) To increase enrolment rate of children in the primary schools from 73.7 percent to 100 percent and reduce primary school dropout rates from 38 percent to zero percent. (3) To elimination gender disparity in primary and secondary education and acquire equal female to male ratio in primary schools by 2005 and all levels of education by 2015. (4) To reduce under-five infant mortality from 151 deaths per thousand to 94 per thousand and enhance proportion of immunised one-year olds for measles from 53 percent to 100 percent. (5) To reduce maternal mortality from 574 deaths per 100,000 to 143 and increase the proportion of births attended by skilled mid-wives to 50 percent by 2010. To reduce total fertility rate 2.2 percent by 2010 and maternal malnutrition to less than 20 percent also included in the target. (6) To combat infectious diseases like malaria and foil the spread of HIV/Aids. (7)To increase proportion of land areas covered by forest to 20 percent from 10.2 percent to save the environment. (8) To develop a global partnership to development.

A recent review on MDG progress, prepared jointly by the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific, the UN Development Program, and the Asian Development Bank revealed that no developing country in the Asia-Pacific region is on track to achieve all the goals by 2015. Regarding the 'dramatic progress' in reducing poverty within the region, the report said the number of people who suffer from hunger has fallen only slightly. It said some 48 percent of children in Afghanistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh suffered from malnutrition, while the number in India was 47 percent. "Asia is the home to 71 percent of the total number of people in the world without access to improved sanitation; 58 percent of those without access to safe water, 56 percent of the world's undernourished; 54 percent of those living in slums; and accounts for 43 percent of the world's child mortality," the report said.

The Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) arranged a dialogue on 'Attaining MDG Targets in Bangladesh: Progress and the Remaining Challenges' a few months back. The experts from home and abroad said in the dialogue that Bangladesh would have to work hard to achieve the MDGs in 2015. The speakers mentioned that the progress of Bangladesh to achieve the MDGs is less than satisfactory in income poverty, adult literacy, rate of immunisation, and maternal mortality. The speakers also indicated that Bangladesh faces 26 challenges to achieve the MDGs in 2015. These included addressing income poverty, reaching the poor, protecting the vulnerable, reducing hunger and malnutrition, ensuring quality education, designing and implementing effective polices, protecting women against discrimination and domestic violence, and reducing child deaths from accidents.

A research organisation, Unnayan Onneshan in its Bangladesh Public Policy Watch 2005 report said, Bangladesh will require 135 years to eliminate poverty in rural areas and 43 years to achieve the prime target of the MDGs at the current rate of poverty reduction. The overall poverty eradication in general would, however, take 81 years at the current rate and 24 years to reach the MDGs. "Bangladesh's prime concern is poverty reduction. Though the government of Bangladesh is hopeful of realising the best part of the goals by the stipulated time, official evidence shows that Bangladesh is not on track to eradicated poverty and achieve the MDG target," said the report.

Recent Preliminary Report of the Poverty Monitoring Survey 2004 by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics shows that the incidence of poverty by head count ratio on the basis of Food Energy Intake was 42.1 percent in 2004 (44.7 percent in 1999). The poverty rate declined 2.6 percent in the last five years, which amounted to an annual poverty reduction rate of about 0.52 percent. The Citizen's Global Progress Report on Poverty Eradication and Gender Equity ranked Bangladesh as the fifth worst among 125 countries in attaining the MDGs. It placed Bangladesh only next to Ethiopia, Rwanda, Niger, and Madagascar, the four worst countries.

The eight goals of the MDG represent a partnership between the developed and the developing countries, as the Millennium Declaration States, "to create an environment at the national and global levels alike, which is conducive to development and the elimination of poverty.' While leaving for the summit, M. Saifur Rahman, the finance minister of the country, told the press that the MDGs are not being implemented on track as the developed countries have not kept their promises to provide funds. With one of the most vulnerable economies in the world, characterised by extremely high population growth rate and low resource base, Bangladesh could not attain any remarkable progress in achieving the MDGs. Notwithstanding the earlier negative predictions, the country, however has achieved considerable success in reducing the gender gap in primary education. It has also achieved success to some extent in mainstreaming women into the development process. The women of the country are now playing an important role in field of micro-credit and readymade garments.

The much vaunted MDGs took a back seat as the lingering shadow of terrorism became the dominant theme of the UN World Summit 2005. However, the summit agreed to channel and additional fund of $50 billion a year by 2010 for fighting poverty as world leaders expressed their commitment to achieve the MDGs by the terminal year 2015. UN Under Secretary General for Communication and Public Information Shashi Tharoor disclosed the commitment for augmented funds during a tell conference with media. The rich countries pledged at the Millennium Summit in 2000 to pay 0.7 percent of their gross national product as aid to help poor countries achieve the MDGs. The commitment for an additional fund of $50 billion a year and 0.7 percent of GNP for reduction of poverty by the developed countries can go a long way to achieve MDGs. But the rich nations should be as good as to their commitment.

The author is a freelance contributor to The Daily Star.