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How to Make the Sustainable Development Goals Work | Foreign Policy

March 18, 2015

Peter Singhatey African Center for Strategic Studies Africa, Development, MDGs, peter singhateh, Peter Singhatey, UNDP Leave a comment

How to Make the Sustainable Development Goals Work | Foreign Policy.

“The two of us met for the first time more than a decade ago, in 2003, in the small rural village of Momemo, an hour’s drive and a world away from the urban bustle of Maputo, Mozambique’s capital and largest city. We were there to gain a deeper understanding of the impact of malaria on the lives of villagers in areas particularly hard hit by the disease.

But as we sat outdoors talking with a small group of villagers, the conversation covered a range of issues about the health and well-being of women and children in the village. How early did women marry here? How many children did they have? How many children had they lost to illness? Could they work and care for children severely sick with malaria?

Although the two of us came to that conversation with very different life experiences, we were drawn together by a common mission: enabling a healthier and more productive life for women and children in the poorest countries. Now we’re coming together again — this time to carry the voices of women like those we met in Momemo to a different conversation, one that will affect women everywhere for a generation to come.

As you read this, world leaders are engaged in discussions about a new global development plan that will succeed the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) when they expire at the end of 2015…”

UN: Most African Nations to Miss 2015 MDG Goals

November 30, 2014

Peter Singhatey Uncategorized Africa, Gambia, MDGs, peter singhateh, Peter Singhatey Leave a comment

UN: Most African Nations to Miss 2015 MDG Goals.

ADDIS ABABA—

Most African countries will not reach the Millennium Development Goals set for 2015 because of the gap between economic and human development. That is one of the conclusions in this year’s annual U.N. report on the Least Developed Countries, presented Thursday.

Junior Davis, U.N. economic affairs officer for Africa, said African countries have not been able to translate their economic growth into structural transformation.

“We think that is the case because these countries have not focused efficiently on building what we call their productive capacities,” Davis said. “These are the basic human and economic development capacities that are needed to promote sustainable economic development. And the MDG, as they were constructed, largely ignored the need to develop the productive capacities.”…

More Africans in extreme poverty than in 1990: UN – Yahoo News

July 9, 2014

Peter Singhatey African Center for Strategic Studies Africa, Development, Gambia, MDGs, peter singhateh, Peter Singhatey Leave a comment

More Africans in extreme poverty than in 1990: UN – Yahoo News.

United Nations (United States) (AFP) – More sub-Saharan Africans are living in extreme poverty now than in 1990, said a major United Nations report Monday, warning the region will miss most of its development goals.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), set in 2000, strive to halve extreme poverty and hunger in the world by 2015.

They also promote and track progress in tackling issues such as AIDS, maternal and childhood mortality, access to clean water, gender equality and education.

Many targets are within reach by the end of 2015, according to the United Nations’ annual MDG progress report: if current trends continue, targets on malaria, tuberculosis and access to HIV treatment will be surpassed, while the hunger target also looks to be within reach, it said.

But it found that sub-Saharan Africa is lagging behind the rest of the world in its progress, with population growth, conflicts and a decrease in international aid making the timely completion of many goals unlikely…

ISS Africa | The post-2015 Development Agenda: new goals, no goals – or own goals?

February 24, 2014

Peter Singhatey Reports Africa, Development, Gambia, MDGs, People & Society Leave a comment

ISS Africa | The post-2015 Development Agenda: new goals, no goals – or own goals?.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), for all their doubtless faults, had this one great virtue: they encapsulated the whole, sprawling and often rather arcane development issue into eight universal, simple, concrete, comprehensible and measurable development targets, to be reached mainly by 2015.

From halving absolute poverty and hunger to reducing infant mortality by two-thirds, the goals were clear and tangible, which made them relatively easy to brand and market. Being measurable, they would, of course, quite clearly show success or failure. And as the deadline looms, it is apparent that in sub-Saharan Africa especially, failure will be far more common than success…

The curious case of Africa’s Progress and the missing Millennium Development Goals – By Susana Edjang | African Arguments

May 21, 2013

Peter Singhatey Articles on Africa Africa, Gambia, MDGs, People & Society, peter singhateh Leave a comment

The curious case of Africa’s Progress and the missing Millennium Development Goals – By Susana Edjang | African Arguments.

The eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that have driven the global development agenda, since September 2000, when Kofi Annan, then Secretary-General of the United Nations, and 191 member states surprised the world by unanimously agreeing and making, the Millennium Declaration.

The Millennium Declaration was both a surprising and encouraging outcome for global progress. Not long before the Millennium Declaration was signed, just the previous year, 1999, world leaders failed to launch “the Millennium Round” of trade negotiations during the Word Trade Organisation (WTO) Ministerial meeting in Seattle. High, middle- and low-income countries could not find it in themselves to agree a global trade agenda that would benefit citizens in rich and poorer countries. In contrast, the MDGs were aspirational and unanimously adopted. They presented a vision of the world very difficult to disagree with; a world with less hunger; with education for all, without unnecessary deaths of women and children from diseases and misfortunes that could easily be prevented. Despite this rosy picture, however, the MDGs faced criticism from the start. They were criticised for being too driven by a pro-aid agenda favoured by the “Triad” — the United States, Europe and Japan — that with support from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank (WB) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) had pushed through the Millennium Declaration. Through aid disbursed to achieve the MDGs, these donor groups were said to increase their influence over national policies in aid recipient countries…

MDGs: The most successful global anti-poverty push in history -UN resident coordinator – Daily Observer

April 18, 2013

Peter Singhatey Articles on Africa Africa, Gambia, MDGs, peter singhateh Leave a comment

MDGs: The most successful global anti-poverty push in history -UN resident coordinator – Daily Observer.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that are set for attainment in two years, have so far been the most successful anti-poverty push in history, as governments, international organisations and civil society groups around the world struggle to cut extreme poverty in the world by half, the United Nations resident coordinator has remarked.

Babagana Ahmadu made these remarks recently at the Kairaba Beach Hotel in Kololi where stakeholders and development partners under the aegis of The Gambia government through the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) gathered to officially launch the Post-2015 National Consultations Development Agenda.

Fight against hunger ‘at heart of Irish foreign policy’, says Eamon Gilmore – World News | Latest International News Headlines | The Irish Times – Wed, Apr 17, 2013

April 18, 2013

Peter Singhatey World News Africa, Ireland, MDGs, peter singhateh, world hunger Leave a comment

Fight against hunger ‘at heart of Irish foreign policy’, says Eamon Gilmore – World News | Latest International News Headlines | The Irish Times – Wed, Apr 17, 2013.

Ireland will push for a greater focus on the links between climate change, hunger and poor nutrition at international gatherings including the UN General Assembly and the forthcoming G8 summit in Fermanagh, Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade Eamon Gilmore said yesterday.

Mr Gilmore was speaking at the close of a conference, hosted by the Government and the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice, and organised with the World Food Programme (WFP) as part of Ireland’s EU presidency, which examined the overlap between climate change, hunger and under-nutrition and its impact on the world’s most vulnerable populations.

“Ireland will keep the fight against hunger at the heart of our foreign policy,” Mr Gilmore said, adding that the Government would advocate for a “single set of measurable goals” to be put in place after 2015, the deadline set when the UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were first launched. Progress on achieving the MDGs has fallen far short of what was initially hoped for.