Devising a shared global strategy for the MDGs: building on successes towards 2015.

• Author: Zukang, Sha
• Position: Millennium Development Goals

Seven years on and halfway towards 2015--the deadline set for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals--success is still possible. The MDGs, which set quantitative benchmarks to halve extreme poverty in all its forms, are achievable if countries implement national development strategies and receive adequate support from the international community.

The annual progress report of the United Nations on the MDGs, released in June 2007, shows that remarkable progress has been made even in regions where the challenges are greatest. These accomplishments testify to the unprecedented degree of commitment by developing countries and their development partners to the Millennium Declaration, as well as to some success in building the global partnership embodied in the Declaration.

Based on the estimates produced by the World Bank in 2007, the number of people living on less than one dollar a day appears to have fallen from 1.25 billion in 1990 to some 980 million in 2004. Even in sub-Saharan Africa, the earlier relentless increase in the number of the poor appears to have been halted and their proportion has begun to decline, from 46 to 41 per cent of the population. The share of children attending primary school increased from 80 per cent in 1991 to 88 per cent in 2005. Child mortality--an age-old scourge of humanity--has also declined, thanks to effective and inexpensive interventions against measles, malaria, diarrhoea and other causes of child deaths.

The commonly-held view that sub-Saharan Africa remains afflicted by war and corrupt Governments, making development impossible, is a misconception. Tremendous progress has been made in improving economic policies and fighting corruption. Many African countries are leading the way in developing national programmes that have yielded big results in a short time. For example, agricultural productivity has been dramatically raised in Malawi; more children are going to primary schools in Ghana, Kenya, the United Republic of Tanzania and Uganda; malaria is being brought under control in Niger, Togo and Zambia; land is being reforested on a large scale in Niger; and Senegal is on track to halving the proportion of people without access to clean water and sanitation.

These successes demonstrate that the MDGs can be achieved even in very poor countries, when strong government commitment and good strategies are backed up with adequate financing from donors. It is now time to take these successes to...