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MDGs in the just ended UN Summit
The role of the private sector in achieving the MDGs


Powerpoint presentation given at the Southern African Social Forum, Zimbabwe

Vitalice Meja - AFRODAD

October 2005

[Summary of contributions]  [Presentations]  [Report]
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Structure
  • State of MDGs in Sub Saharan Africa
  • Key issues in the Summit
  • MDGs in the Summit
  • Conclusion

Status of MDGs in SSA
SSA : Has the worsed human development index
  • The region experienced increased number of extreme poverty cases
  • Registered the lowest primary enrolment rate
  • Deepening and speading HIV/AIDS
Little progress on aid, debt and no progress on Trade

Main Agenda of the Summit
  • Development (MDGs)
  • Peace and collective security
  • Human rights and rule of law
  • Strethening the United Nations

Issues on the UN Summit
Broadly areas of contention included,
  • The USA wanted defination of terrorism to be very broad which other countries were opposed to
  • USA shortdown guidelines to premptive action ( because they wanted to maintain unilateral stance
  • Issues around the summit
  • The developing countries opposed the proposed reforms on the responsibilty to protect because they viewed it as a developed states excuse to intervene in their business
  • The proposed Human rights council was opposed by developing countries becuase it would be hard for them to get in (Countries with bad human rights record)

MDGs and the Summit
  • MDGs took a back stage to the forementioned issues
  • At most they were used as bargaining chip by USA
  • The timeframe reference (by 2015) was deleted in the commitment to adopt and implement comprehensive national development strategies to achieve internationally agreed development goals including the MDGs.

Goal 1: Poverty Eradication
    Some explicit references to the MDGs were deleted. For example, the following sentence was changed from “We remain concerned, however, by the slow and uneven implementation of the internationally agreed development goals, including the Millennium Development Goals…” to “We remain concerned, however with the slow and uneven progress towards poverty eradication and the realization of other development goals in some regions.”

Goal 2: Education
  • New paragraph: Commits to promoting education for peace and human development.
  • New paragraph: Reaffirms commitment to support developing country efforts to ensure all children have access to and complete free and compulsory primary education, to eliminate gender inequality and improve girls’ education.
  • Goal 3: Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women
  • The text: “ensuring equal access of women to productive assets and resources, including land, credit and technology,” was added.
  • Text on ensuring women’s equal opportunity to participate fully in the political process” was added.
  • Goal 4 & 5: Infant and Maternal Mortality
  • The text remained the same

Goal 6: HIV/AIDS, Malaria, TB and Other Health Related Issues
  • Specific agreement on 2006 as a launch date for a global initiative and 2010 as a target date by which to have strengthened national health systems were deleted.
  • The targeted category of developing countries was expanded to include “economies in transition.
  • The commitment to ensure that the resources needed for these programs are provided “universally by 2010” was deleted.

Goal 7: Environmental Sustainability
  • Agreement to commit to funding multilateral initiatives and agencies in the field of sustainable development and to replenish the Global Environment Facility was deleted, however, the invaluable role of the Facility and hope for successful replenishment this year were mentioned.
  • Goal 7
  • Agreement to initiate negotiations to develop a more inclusive international framework for climate change beyond 2012 was deleted. The text was changed to reflect commitments to moving forward the global discussion on long-term
  • The text on the target for achieving significant improvement in the lives of 100 million slum-dwellers was changed from 2015 to 2010.

Goal 8: Aid, Debt and Trade
  • Regarding official development assistance, a reference to the estimate by the OECD that official development assistance to all developing countries will increase by around $50 billion a year by 2010 was added.
  • On enhancing the quality of aid, references to clear monitoring and deadlines and making progress on untying aid were added.
  • Welcoming the decision to launch an international finance facility on a voluntary basis to support immediate front-loading of ODA was deleted.
  • Commitment to maximizing resources to fund national development strategies was also deleted from the document.
  • Language on the exploration of mechanisms to address debt problems such as debt for sustainable development swaps or multi-creditor debt swaps arrangements was added.
  • Language on World Bank and IMF changed from “should” to “could” include further efforts to develop the debt sustainability framework
  • No mention of exploration of other mechanisms to address the debt problem outside the HIPC framework
  • The text on undertaking to “provide immediate duty-free and quota-free market access…” was deleted.




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