Just how long are the poor of Africa expected to wait for poverty to be defeated? asks Rebecca Ajabo Asaba. Until 2015? Not likely – according to current projections it will take hundreds of years for Africa to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. Ajabo Asaba states that that before it is too late, the entire global economic, financial and trade architecture needs to be restructured.

The Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP) campaign in Africa by civil society organizations and prominent international activists has affirmed civil society as a major player in bringing the plight of the poor in Africa to the fore of the global development agenda. The initiative has mobilized continent wide popular campaigns led by vigilant umbrella civil society groups in the East, North, West and Southern African sub-regions. Civil society in Africa has made steadfast progress on pressuring global leaders to address the impact of poverty, the spread of HIV/AIDS and other poverty challenges confronting Africa. Global leaders are challenged to meet their pledges on the MDGs and in particular address the debt burden on African countries and expand trade opportunities to improve the lives of millions of Africans.

The battle against poverty must be won. How long should the poor of Africa wait for the opportunity for education or the certainty of food or basic health care? Is the answer 2015, the deadline for achieving the MDGs?

No, according to the UNDP Human Development Report 2003. The report cautions that “unless things improve”, it will take Sub-Saharan Africa until 2129 to achieve universal primary education, until 2147 to halve extreme poverty and until 2165 to cut child mortality by two thirds. Baffled by the region’s worsening food security situation there is no date set to end hunger. The report is optimistic that achieving the MDGs is a possibility for Latin America, East Asia, the Pacific, Central and Eastern Europe, but once again Africa has been left out.

Among its major challenges, Africa must overcome HIV/AIDS and Malaria, both responsible for devastating economic and human welfare, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. About 150 million Africans are directly affected by HIVAIDS, an estimated 25 percent of the population of the sub-region shouldering a 90% share of the global impact of HIV/AIDS.

The severity of poverty in this region is also of particular concern given that countries have since the 1980s pursued what International Financial Institutions consider the ‘right’ economic policies of market liberalization, privatization, and macroeconomic stability measures. What these policies have not done ‘right’ is to aleniate the masses from meaningful participation in the economy. The architects of liberalization argue that the costs of liberalization are short term while its benefits come in ‘handy’ in the long-term. This has not been the case for most economies in Africa and thus poses questions on how long-term or short term the poor should pay the costs of liberalization.

Despite some GDP achievements in terms of growth, the region’s Least Developed Countries still do not have the growth levels of seven 7% necessary to achieve the MDGs. Besides this, governments face huge budgetary shortfalls that make it difficult to invest adequately in health, education, and the provision of water services.

Rightly, Africa has been reminded that it needs to find solutions to its internal governance evils that demean its social and economic development, chiefly corruption, undemocratic leadership and human rights abuses. With this in mind, the external solutions are equally important. The whole global economic, financial and trade architecture has a fundamental role in the future of Africa’s poor. Definitely there can only be hope of ending the marginalization of Africa in the global economic system when the global partnership for development increases trade opportunities, aid and cancels debt.

To contain poverty in Africa, one of the things that have to improve is the commitment by world leaders to address the region’s challenges that keep it behind other regions of the world in achieving the MDGs. Africa’s economies, compared to other regions, face stagnation. Therefore the levels of progress in education and health achieved in success stories like Uganda and Ghana, will most likely not be sustainable. This is why Africa’s marginalization from the global economy are so important to the achievement of the MDGs in Africa.

Without doubt Africa’s road to the MDGs is a long one. Now that its leadership and the global partnership have pledged their responsibility in reducing poverty in Africa, the MDGs must be taken to the new political height of commitment, without which the prevailing poverty trends will most probably continue.

* Rebecca Ajabo Asaba is Programme Assistant at the African Women’s Economic Policy Network (AWEPON)

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