The Millennium Development Goals, commonly known as MDGs, are the targets adopted by world leaders in 2000 to promote development and health care in the poorest countries of the world. The cut-off date to achieve the targets is 2015 and progress in important areas is reviewed periodically.
According to a report entitled "The Millennium Development Goals: Progress in Asia and the Pacific 2007", produced jointly by the ADB, the UN Development Programme and UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), no developing country in the Asia-Pacific region is on track to achieve all the targets set to reduce poverty and provide adequate social services by 2015.
While progress has been made on combating poverty, it has been accompanied by a troubling increase in income inequality. As envisaged in the MDGs, the number of people living in extreme poverty in the region is likely to be cut to half by 2015.
The region which is home to 60 percent of the world's population, had more than one billion people living on less than $1 (euro 0.7) a day in 1990, but their number has now dropped to 641 million. China has made the biggest headway, with one in three Chinese living in poverty in 1990, compared to one in 10 today. Other countries like Philippines, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka were lagging behind.
The benefit of rising growth, however, is not reaching large clusters segments of population and in many countries, the poorest 20 percent of the population have, in fact, seen their share of national income drop steeply. Out of 20 countries in the region, income inequality has risen in 14 countries.
Overall, while Asia-Pacific region is on track to reduce extreme poverty, attain universal education and achieve gender parity, biggest failures to date have been in reducing child mortality, improving nutrition and maternal health, and providing safe drinking water and sanitation facilities.
The information gleaned from different sources also reveals more or less similar trends in Pakistan. Official circles claim that strong economic growth, large inflow of remittances and heavy spending on Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) have succeeded in reducing poverty and improving social sector indicators from 2001-02 to 2006-07.
At the national level, poverty decreased from 34.46 percent in 2001-02 to 23.9 percent in 2004-05, depicting a substantial reduction of 10.5 percentage points. In absolute numbers, the number of poor persons fell from 49.23 million to 36.45 million during this period.
It is, however, to be noted that the gap between the rich and the poor has widened. According to a government survey, consumption inequality in Pakistan has increased marginally during 2001-05, while consumption/income equality in the country is far lower compared with many high, middle and low income countries.
Most of the indicators pertaining to education such as gross and net enrolment at primary level and literacy rate have improved significantly during 2001-06. Health indicators, children immunisation, incidence of diarrhea and infant mortality have also improved appreciably.
The report on the achievement of targets in the MDGs shows that progress in the Asia-Pacific region has been rather incongruous. While the level of poverty has declined, income inequalities have generally increased. The performance in other areas has also been mixed.
However, we would like to commend the world leaders for their foresight to first set ambitious targets on a long term basis in pertinent areas of the economy and then encourage the staff of multilateral institutions to undertake a serious review of the situation almost in the middle of the stipulated period of the MDGs programme.
This would allow the policy makers to change the strategy midway, if so desired. The biggest failure so far seems to be the increase in income inequalities in most of the countries in the region. This would ultimately prove to be a great threat because people could get more frustrated from the widening difference between their income/wealth level or standard of living and that of the richer sections of society rather than be content with the improvement in their own incomes per se.
The continuation of this trend could, therefore, lead to social or political instability which may ultimately jeopardise the achievement of MDGs programme. However, it needs to be recognised that income disparities are generally the outcome of higher economic growth in the initial stages of development of a country and are hard to avoid.
An appropriate fiscal strategy has to be designed and implemented to ensure that the have-nots are not left very much behind and the people in the top brackets are refused the means to live ostentatiously without undermining the incentive structure of the economy.
The failure in reducing child mortality, providing safe drinking water and sanitation facilities is also deplorable. Some countries, particularly the region's least developed ones, do not have the required resources to meet the investment needs in this area. We would urge the developed countries to help these countries in providing at least the basic facilities of life to their citizens on humanitarian grounds.
As far as Pakistan is concerned, it has done reasonably well in most of the areas and is expected to do better if the present growth momentum is sustained. Poverty level has declined by more than ten percentage points and the country is likely to attain the targets prescribed under MDGs by 2015. The progress in other relevant indicators is also satisfactory.
However, income inequality as measured by the difference in consumption levels, has widened over time. This challenge needs to be addressed urgently because social cohesion, judging by relevant indicators, seems to be already under serious threat.
Another area of weakness is the loss of confidence in government statistics in the country. Nobody, except the government functionaries, seems to believe that poverty is declining rapidly and social sector indicators are improving with the passage of time. The government needs to move quickly to restore the credibility of its statistics otherwise ordinary people will not pay heed to official claims and tend to draw their own conclusions.