See also: [ A dollar a day won't keep poverty away ] [ Explaining the Millennium Goals ]

Africa struggles to attain millennium goals

Progress and setbacks in continent's efforts to improve well-being

By Michael Fleshman

In the cruel calculus of absolute poverty, the decision to send Suzan Mwase to school in 1993 instead of her sisters was wrenchingly practical. Born the last of three daughters to subsistence farmers in a remote district of rural Malawi, there was money enough only for one. Extra hands were needed on the farm if the family was to pay the $1.30 annual school fee, and the older girls would be more productive.

Photo : ©UNICEF / 93-1992 / Giacomo Pirozzi

It was a dilemma faced by hundreds of thousands of parents in a country where most people were desperately poor. Education barely accounted for 10 per cent of national expenditures, and school enrolment and literacy rates had hovered around 50 per cent for decades. The following year a newly elected government announced the abolition of school fees, but few expected the removal of such a small levy to have much impact on Malawi's deep-rooted education problems.

No one was prepared, therefore, for the 1 million eager new students who showed up on the first day of school. They overwhelmed a system expecting 10,000 additional enrolments, and sent parents and community leaders, government officials and international aid agencies scrambling to find everything from teachers and desks to pencils and paper.

Somehow they succeeded, and a decade later, despite the enduring poverty, the ravages of drought and famine, and the murderous spread of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, Malawi has kept the school doors open to the poor. As a result, literacy rates have climbed, the primary school enrolment rate, if not the graduation rate, is among the highest in the world and education now accounts for nearly a quarter of the national budget.

Malawi's unexpected step forward in education is one of the successes being achieved by Africans in the struggle for economic and social development. On a continent too often perceived as a charity case, Malawi demonstrates how determined political leadership, combined with vigorous civil society participation and only modest increases in external assistance can improve the lives of millions, and help the continent achieve the ambitious development objectives contained in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The goals, which include halving the number of people in absolute poverty, achieving universal primary education for both girls and boys, and securing deep reductions in child and maternal mortality rates by 2015, were adopted by the international community at the UN Millennium Summit in September 2000 (see box 2, below).

The importance of the goals, noted Secretary-General Kofi Annan in a recent report to the General Assembly, is that, for the first time, the world has agreed on "a measurable set of human development benchmarks" to evaluate poverty-reduction efforts, with deadlines for achieving them. Many developing countries, donors and non-governmental organizations have made reaching the MDGs their top priority, he noted, and "for every goal there are encouraging signs of progress in some areas." But as the world reaches midpoint in the 1990-2015 MDG timetable, Mr. Annan also cautioned that "there are worrying signs of stagnation and reversal in others."

Africa lagging behind

Nowhere are the signs more ominous than in sub-Saharan Africa, the world's poorest and least developed region. Africa entered the new millennium with the highest poverty and child mortality rates, and the lowest school enrolment figures in the world. Child mortality rates in Africa changed little during the 1990s, due largely to the HIV/AIDS pandemic, which eroded the gains in infant and maternal health made by some countries. Much the same can be said for Africa's primary school enrolments, which rose from a world low of 56 per cent in 1991 to just 59 per cent a decade later. This is also partly a result of HIV/AIDS, which has forced many children, particularly girls, to withdraw from school to care for sick relatives and has reduced families' ability to pay school fees.

Photo : © Jake Price

Conflict, as Mr. Annan noted, is another major obstacle to progress on the MDGs, as education and health services collapse and hundreds of thousands of families flee their communities to become refugees or internally displaced people, and resources are invested in defence instead of development.

The 1990s saw an actual decline in average African per capita income and an increase in the number of people living on $1 per day (see graph) or less from 241 million in 1990 to 315 million in 1999 -- nearly half of Africa's population. Economic stagnation, combined with declining levels of development aid and private investment, deteriorating terms of trade, an unsustainable debt burden, and the ravages of conflict and HIV/AIDS and other diseases, have left Africa with fewer resources to invest in development, and more vulnerable to global economic shocks and environmental disasters like droughts and floods.

The World Bank estimates that Africa's economies must grow at a sustained rate of at least 7-8 per cent annually if they are to lift significant numbers of people out of poverty and attain the MDGs. But growth averaged only about half that during the 1990s, and the medium-term prospects are not encouraging. Mr. Patrick Asea, a senior economist with the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), reported to African finance ministers in Addis Ababa in early June that sub-Saharan Africa's economy grew by a disappointing 3.2 per cent last year, well below the 4.3 per cent rate in 2001 and barely enough to keep pace with population growth. Economic recovery in the US and Europe should modestly boost Africa's performance this year, he noted, but the number of Africans in absolute poverty is nonetheless expected to increase to as much as 426 million by the 2015 deadline.

"It is now generally agreed that Africa . . . is the one region in the world that is unlikely to achieve the MDGs," African Development Bank President Omar Kabbaj told the finance ministers in Addis Ababa. "The problem that our continent faces is that general progress -- involving a large number of countries -- has yet to be achieved."

Amid difficulties: progress

"If you take Africa as a whole, it is not doing well" in reaching the MDGs, acknowledged Mr. Jan Vandemoortele, the head of the UN Development Programme's poverty reduction group. "But that doesn't mean there is no progress being made in Africa," he told Africa Recovery in New York. "We have to be careful that averages don't get in the way of understanding more complex realities."

Indeed, in some countries the progress on some MDGs has been considerable. Gambia, with almost 60 per cent of its citizens in absolute poverty, is nevertheless among the five countries in the world to reduce child mortality rates, while Burkina Faso recently reversed a long decline in vaccination rates and exceeded its own ambitious targets for immunization against tuberculosis and measles. Senegal and Uganda have dramatically reduced HIV infection rates through innovative education and prevention programmes that are among the most effective in the world. In Kenya, the new government's decision to abolish primary school fees earlier this year put an additional 1.5 million children in the classroom.

The end of conflicts in Angola and Sierra Leone, and progress towards resolving the regional conflict centred in the Democratic Republic of Congo -- success stories in themselves -- are also expected to pay short-term economic and development dividends as citizens and governments turn to the task of reconstruction.

There is some good economic news too. Eleven African countries posted growth rates above 5 per cent last year, including four -- Cape Verde, Mozambique, Uganda and Mauritius -- that have had sustained growth rates above 6 per cent for a decade or more. In Uganda's case, growth has lifted 4 million people from the ranks of the absolutely poor and reduced the poverty rate from 56 per cent to 35 per cent in just 8 years. In Ghana too, a decade of growth has permitted 2 million people to escape abject poverty.

Mr. Kabbaj and other economists argue that the countries making the fastest progress towards the MDGs are those that have maintained macro-economic discipline, embraced market reforms and democracy and improved the climate for both domestic and foreign investment by strengthening legal and judicial systems and reducing corruption and red tape.

According to the ECA, more and more African governments are joining this cluster of reforming countries -- placing a priority on poverty reduction in national development plans, investing more in health and education and adopting the economic and political policies necessary to attract greater aid and private investment. The number of countries preparing formal poverty reduction strategy papers (PRSPs) increased significantly last year, with nine countries finalizing their PRSPs in 2002, compared with four in 2001. Many countries have reduced their budget deficits and inflation rates to manageable levels and, according to the ECA, improved the domestic economic climate over two decades of often painful reform.

The MDGs themselves have become part of the reform process. They have been incorporated into Africa's own development blueprint, the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD). A voluntary oversight body, the African Peer Review Mechanism, was launched in Abuja in May to monitor the continent's adherence to good political and economic governance.

The ECA also reports improvements in aid delivery and accountability. In Uganda, for example, bilateral donors are now channelling about half of the country's aid into budgetary support, instead of funding individual projects. This reform gives governments more flexibility in spending decisions, reduces time and paperwork, and helps to align donor programmes with national development priorities.

Tanzania and its development partners have established an independent body to monitor and evaluate aid delivery and effectiveness, while Ghana has inaugurated a donor code of conduct to improve coordination among its various aid partners. In February, representatives of major bilateral and multilateral donor agencies agreed to work with a group of African and other developing countries to develop criteria for more effective aid delivery and put in place mechanisms for mutual accountability and evaluation.

Photo : ©AfricaPhotos.com

A few countries have begun to benefit from debt relief under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative, releasing revenue to invest in development and enhancing prospects for future growth. One early HIPC beneficiary, Uganda, has invested its debt savings in universal primary education, while Mali, Mozambique and Senegal have announced plans to use funds freed from debt service to expand HIV prevention programmes. Regionally, reports the ECA, Africa's debt service as a percentage of annual revenue declined from 21 per cent in 1999 to 15 per cent last year, releasing an additional $2 bn for health, education and other pro-poor services.

Paltry partners

But overall, noted Mr. Annan, wealthy countries have yet to mobilize the resources needed to reach the MDGs. Forging the required "global partnership for development" between developing countries and the industrialized North is the eighth and final MDG, but here too the record is a mix of progress and setbacks. Under HIPC, for example, only 8 countries, including 7 in Africa, have actually had their debt reduced, well short of the target of 19 countries for 2003 set by the International Monetary Fund. In some of those cases, the amount to be written off was calculated on the basis of overly optimistic forecasts of future growth and has been insufficient to bring the debt burden down to "sustainable" levels, a problem made worse by the sharp drop in prices for Africa's commodity exports. Indeed, in some countries, lost export earnings have cost countries as much as they will save under HIPC, effectively cancelling the development benefits of debt reduction.

Official development assistance (ODA) finally reversed its worldwide decade-long slide in 2001, but has stablized only at about 1990 levels. Aid is expected to rise over the next two years on the strength of pledges by some donors, including the US, Canada and the EU, to provide an additional $16 bn in development assistance by 2006, with much of the increase earmarked for Africa. But the sluggish economic recovery and increased demands on domestic budgets in industrialized countries has already led some countries to retreat from their pledges. "That," Mr. Annan observed, "would be enormously damaging to prospects for meeting the MDGs."

If Africa and other developing regions are to make the kind of "general progress" needed on the MDGs, far greater resources will have to be generated from all sources -- debt relief, ODA, foreign direct investment, trade, and domestic investment and savings. In the view of many economists, an additional $50 bn a year in development funds, about double the amount now available, would be required to reach the MDGs worldwide. Under current global economic and political conditions, however, said Mr. Vandemoortele, "we shouldn't hold our breath."

There is also a need to direct available ODA to the countries in greatest need. During the 1990s, he said, "the countries with the highest child mortality rates suffered the greatest drop in ODA. This is extremely worrisome." He also noted that the 23 countries with the highest HIV infection rates have suffered a 25 per cent decline in aid flows in recent years. "This is basically inadmissible. If the world is really serious about doing something to stop the epidemic, this is not the way to do it. . . . If we are not addressing the HIV pandemic in those countries, there is no way any of the MDG targets will be met."

The tendency of donor countries to reward successful countries with greater aid, he cautioned, can entrench poverty in less favoured places and sometimes ignores the culpability of Northern governments for crisis situations. "For many years we in the West too often supported regimes that didn't deserve it." In the Democratic Republic of Congo, he noted, Western support for the former Mobuto government had contributed to the current crisis. "We cannot now blame the Congolese for not being able to keep their house in order. That really is blaming the victim for the crime." While it was important to reduce waste and corruption in aid delivery, "we cannot walk away from those countries and those people by blaming them for a situation for which we [often] bear a great part of the responsibility."

There is little prospect for the private sector to make up the shortfall in ODA. Although Africa pays the highest rate of return on investments -- four times higher than in Group of Seven countries and twice the average in Asia -- flows of foreign direct investment to Africa declined by $6 bn in 2002 in response to the global recession and investor concerns about conflicts and political stability.

Africa's difficulty in attracting investment is reinforced by the world trading system, which has discouraged industrial development and depressed the prices for many of its commodity exports. "Germany would be a very different country if a Mercedes sold for $2,000 today instead of $50,000," Mr. Vandemoortele commented. "That is perhaps a fair comparison to what is happening in Africa." Since 1990, he continued, Africa has seen prices for many of its exports cut in half. "No economy can absorb such shocks. There is no way."

Although many of Africa's raw materials exports enter developed country markets under preferential terms, he continued, "if you process a product in Africa you will end up paying two, three or four times more in import duties than when you export raw materials for processing in the rich countries. This is a big disincentive to invest in Africa."

No silver bullet

The failure of the World Trade Organization meeting in Cancún in September is a further setback to Africa's development prospects, Mr. Vandemoortele told Africa Recovery (see article "Hope seen in the ashes of Cancun"). But he emphasized that trade is not the engine of development. All the evidence, he said, suggests instead that "trade follows development. It is not a silver bullet." Improved terms of trade must be complimented by increased aid and deeper debt reductions if Africa is to make headway on the MDGs.

In the absence of those resources, he observed, African leaders have little choice but to prioritize individual MDGs and make progress where they can. "If we are serious about national ownership, let the Africans decide where to start. . . . We cannot impose global targets on each and every country regardless of circumstances." The importance of the MDGs, he concluded, lies not in the deadlines or even the specific development targets, but in their ability to mobilize resources and galvanize political and social action. "For the first time we have a global consensus on what development is all about. That's key."

Box 1: A dollar a day won't keep poverty away As a way of communicating the depth of the suffering of the poor in developing countries to the citizens and policymakers of wealthy countries, few formulations are more effective than the $1 a day measurement of poverty. People who will never see or experience the grinding poverty of rural Zambia or urban Bangladesh can nevertheless imagine what it must be like for a family to live on what, in more fortunate countries, is the price of a morning newspaper. But as an economic tool, says Mr. Jan Vandemoortele, the standard of $1 a day is flawed. An increase from 95 cents to $1.05 a day may make little real difference to a family, he noted, yet removes that family from the poverty count. "The short of it is a dollar a day doesn't keep poverty away." Moreover, "too many statistical errors slip in and the picture can get distorted" by rounding off statistics and averaging out income disparities. "These methodological problems are too great. It can't be fixed." Far more accurate, he said, are country-specific household budget surveys that measure by direct observation the "basket" of goods and services needed by families for a minimum quality of life. Such surveys, by being closer to the ground, capture regional variations and more accurately reflect the real-world challenges facing the poor. This makes poverty difficult to compare across countries, he conceded, but provides much greater information to policymakers.

Box 2: The Millennium Development Goals To be achieved by 2015, from 1990 levels
1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger	Reduce by half the proportion of people living on less than $1 a day and those who suffer from hunger.
2. Achieve universal primary education	Ensure that all boys and girls complete a full course of primary schooling.
3. Promote gender equality and empower women	Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015.
4. Reduce child mortality	Reduce by two thirds the mortality rate among children under five.
5. Improve maternal health	Reduce by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio.
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases	Halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS and the incidence of malaria and other major diseases.
7. Ensure environmental sustainability	Integrate sustainable development principles into country policies and programmes; reverse loss of environmental resources. Halve the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and significantly improve the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers, by 2020.
8. Develop a global partnership for development	Develop an open trading and financial system that is rules-based and non-discriminatory, and includes a global commitment to good governance, development and poverty reduction. Address the least developed countries' special needs in trade, debt relief and for more generous aid. Address the special needs of landlocked and small island developing states. Address developing countries' debt problems through measures to make debt sustainable. In cooperation with developing countries, develop decent, productive work for youth. In cooperation with pharmaceutical companies, provide access to affordable essential drugs in developing countries. In cooperation with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies -- especially information and communications technologies.

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