Are the millennium development goals achievable?

Access to basic social services not only forms the care of development but is also increasingly recognised as a basic human right serving to reduce non-income poverty of poor households enabling them to lead healthier and more productive life.
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), as an extension of old development agenda, dating back to at least the Pearson Commission's Report, 1969, on "Partners in development" have inspired the world community to achieve time-scale quantitative targets to reduce poverty and hunger and time bound efforts to develop basic social services - all by the year 2015.
The comprehensiveness of MDGs suggests that reduction of income-based poverty alone is not adequate to assess the multidimensional magnitude of poverty and deprivation of poor.
In addition low income, illiteracy, ill-health, gender inequality, lack of safe drinking water and sanitation, shelter, justice, powerlessness, voicelessness and environmental degradation are all aspects of being poor and, therefore, a holistic approach is necessary.
MDGs represent a partnership between the developed countries and the developing countries to create en environment at the national and global levels conducive to human development and the poverty reduction.
The first goals are mutually reinforcing and are directed at reducing poverty in all its forms. The last goal - global partnerships for development - is about the means to achieve the first seven.
The eighth goal on which modest commitments are made by the rich nations to help poor countries through financial assistance, debt relief, and access to their markets for their products is important for the success of first seven goals.
The experience of over 130 developing countries on achieving MDGs is mixed. Kofi Annan, UN Secretary-General, presenting his first annual progress report on implementation of the Millennium Declaration in October 2002 admitted that the world was falling short of meeting the objectives agreed by global leaders in 2000 and warned that prospects of reaching the MDGs as the focus of global action on current trends were 'decidedly mixed," with marked differences between and within regions in the Millennium Summit and commitments.
Among many reasons of this falling, the most important aspect is the commitment of providing matching aid to developing countries. MDGs transition from the Copenhagen Declaration and Programme of Action (1995) to Millennium Summit Declaration in 2002 suggests that MDGs implementation will need additional financial resources and more effective development co-operation and assistance.
The failure of 20/20 initiative of the Social Summit agreeing to a mutual commitment between developed and developing country to allocate, on average, 20 percent of official development assistance and 20 percent of the national budget, respectively to the provision of basic social services suggests that developing countries would require substantial increases in both external resources committed by the world community as per Goal 8 of MDGs - as well as in the share of domestic resources to social expenditure.
The first four years of new millennium have seen Pakistan emerging out from the low growth syndrome of the 1990s. GDP growth was a paltry 3% in the 1990s. In 2003-04 it was over 6% and is expected to be above 8% in the medium term framework. The firm commitments and continuation of reform agenda initiated in 1999 have resulted in positive outcomes.
The government's anti-poverty agenda envision to "winning the war against poverty" essentially through: macroeconomic stability with equitable growth; rural development; modernisation of agricultural sector and greater recourse to SMEs; human development; protecting the vulnerable and the environment and good governance have pulled the economy out of multiple crises and laid the foundation of a vibrant and growing economy and to overcome the problem of poverty.
The government consistently and explicitly committed itself towards achieving the overarching goal of poverty eradication, and protecting the vulnerable groups.
Nevertheless, Pakistan's experience suggests that economic growth does not translate automatically into poverty reduction and in narrowing the income gaps.
The country even after years of rapid economic growth faced high degree of inequality in the distribution of income and services, particularly health, education, housing, water supply, sanitation and gender equality. MDGs progress in Pakistan, therefore, largely hinges on reducing both income and non-income poverty.
Lack of institutional capacities, skilled manpower and supportive physical infrastructure is a real problem, which would affect timely achievement of MDGs target. A major setback has been under-investment in social services.
Pakistan in the last four years has made sizeable budgetary allocations to increase the share of pro-poor expenditures.
This expenditure at around 6% is significantly higher at about 3% a decade ago, but is still very low compared to the requirements to meet MDG targets. The success of MDGs is therefore largely dependent on timely assistance from developed countries.
The international aid climate, however, is not supportive to achieve MDGs. Report of the High Level Panel for Financing for Development has assessed that total additional resources of $50 billion per year will be needed to meet MDG targets world-wide, over and above the current level of spending.
A steady decline in ODA, now stands at about less than one-third of the agreed commitment for MDGs has put severe pressure on developing countries to achieve their commitment towards MDGs. If the MDGs are to be met, there must be a massive increase in aid flows to developing countries. It is also necessary that efforts should be made to address the MDGs inherent problems.
The blood count of MDGs progress is based on broad averages. Without doubt averages give a good sense of overall progress, but they can be misleading. Averages do not tell the real story. Data from demographic and health surveys show that a child from a poor family is invariably more likely to die before age 5 than its counterpart from a rich family.
Similarly, children from poor families are less likely to complete primary education then children from rich families. Data from some of Latin American countries show that over 90 percent of the children in the top income-group complete primary education.The share fails to two-thirds for children in the middle-group and drops below 40 percent for children in the bottom group.
Demographic and health surveys for 1994 and 1997 in Bangladesh show that improvements in access to basic education benefited foremost the children from better-off families; while children from poor families saw little or no improvements. A good assessment of progress towards the MDGs must, therefore, go beyond averages and aggregates.
MDGs are difficult but not impossible to achieve. Collective efforts both by the developed and developing countries must be made to achieve the MDGs. The world community and national governments must make significant increases in their expenditure and assistance for the provision of basic social services.
Without such a commitment it would not be easy for developing countries, including Pakistan to achieve MDGs. Otherwise the singing words of the Millennium Declaration will serve only as given reminders of the human needs neglected.