Great Expectations, Greater Disappointments
by Lauren Ting
The United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s), adopted by 189 nations and signed by 147 heads of state at the UN Millennium Summit in September 2000, define eight broad objectives to be achieved by 2015. These include the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, environmental sustainability and the creation of a global partnership for development. The eight primary goals are broken up into 18 more specific targets and 48 measurable indicators. The program assigns developed countries the responsibility of monitoring the progress of developing countries by acknowledging the importance of respect towards human rights and democratic governance, and by emphasizing the importance of sustainable development in poverty reduction and growth.
Since 2001, the signatory countries have been following the Road Map Towards the Implementation of the United Nations Millennium Declaration, outlining strategies for achieving the targets. Progress has been measured in the past few years with annual reports, each year focusing on a different aspect of the overall plan.
Although this plan, supported also by the European Union, is clearly well intentioned, it has not always benefited the right people or sufficiently improved the quality of life for the average citizen. Particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, statistics from recent years provide a grim outlook, suggesting that the situation in terms of income and food availability has actually become worse, leaving little chance that the continent will achieve the MDG’s by 2015.
The global poverty rate has fallen over the last decade, but this is due primarily to growth in Asia, while certain areas of Africa have actually become poorer. Between war, drought, corruption and ever increasing populations, millions of people have been living in even worse conditions, relying on less than $1 a day and insufficient food supplies. With a trend towards urbanization, certain environmental goals seem doomed to failure as overcrowded slums lead to waterborne disease and lack of sanitation.
One struggling aspect remains the implementation of aid to agriculture, which has proved insufficient and often ineffective. Small farmers account for 70 percent of the rural sub-Saharan African population, where poverty is most prevalent. Due to falling development assistance towards agriculture, climate change and the rampancy of HIV, productive capacity has decreased over the past few years while other developing countries have enjoyed a significant increase. Farmers today face lacking resources and land availability, insufficient market access, and underprovided training and services.
In spite of the clear need for agricultural aid, it is often withdrawn in favor of other types of aid, often food aid. In the long term, this leads to dependency and often negatively affects local markets. Food security programs, another component of aid, have had partial effectiveness in helping local African farmers, but access to such programs is often very limited and the application process arduous. Even simple and relatively inexpensive innovations such as irrigation systems would allow farmers to increase production significantly and potentially escape poverty.
Aid to Africa is often focused on government stability rather than on smaller-scale citizens in need. Food security programs are often substituted for bilateral government assistance, which is often wasted by corruption and rarely trickles down to the poor. Most of the farming aid available is focused on large-scale operations with the ability to export, or helps primarily “middle-class” farmers who are already living in more stable circumstances, leaving small-scale farmers in the dust.
While the Millennium Development Goals are incredibly decent and important undertakings, their implementation in certain areas has been flawed. Immense sums of money have been spent on achieving these goals, and major progress has been made. At the same time, in order to reduce poverty in developing Africa and insure food security and economic stability, some changes must be implemented. Aid to agriculture must begin to focus more on small-scale farmers who need every day economic support in order to survive and escape the vicious cycle of poverty. While trade issues and government and market stability are important areas of focus for building a future, no country can exist without its citizens, and the people of sub-Saharan Africa are in need of daily aid if they are going to defeat poverty and rise up to the levels of developed nations.
