The MDGs are characterized by a top-down approach, fail to recognize the intangible aspects of poverty and distract from the macro-economic constraints poor countries experience in accessing finance. Despite this, some of the goals are achievable and there is no excuse for missing them, writes Hellen Tombo. Committed leadership, stronger partnerships, extra money, debt cancellation, infrastructure development and deeper participation by the poor can all play a role.

At the beginning of the new millennium (2000), the United Nations set up eight goals that need to be realized by 2015 that became known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The leaders and heads of state of 189 countries signed the Millennium Declaration, which set a series of targets for global action against poverty. Meeting the MDGs would not end economic poverty; but meeting them could make a positive difference to millions of people. This month 189 world leaders re-convene in New York to attend the UN Millennium +5 Summit and review progress in implementation of the MDGs. The question that is constantly ringing in our minds is: Have many countries achieved the goals at all?
Reviewing the positive aspects of the MDGs

The MDGs cover the relative dimensions of poverty, not just income poverty. The goals reflect a broad terrain of basic human wellbeing, representing the many dimensions of poverty as part of an integrated whole. The visible signs of poverty can be calculated in terms of access to basic needs such as food, shelter, sanitation, water, health care and education. The goals underscore the fact that tailored interventions in many sectors are essential if human development is to be achieved.

The MDGs are implicitly linked to the human rights framework although such links are not strong enough. The MDGs link directly to the articles of the universal declaration of human rights, which states that everyone has a right to a standard of living adequate for health and the wellbeing, including food, clothing, housing, medical care, and necessary social services. Everyone has a right to education. Furthermore article 28 of the UNHR calls for an international order supportive of implementation of human rights, which is reflected in MDG 8.

The MDGs are global and national. The process through which they were elaborated means that they have an impact both at national level and the global level. There is no other source of authority other than heads of state agreeing through a global forum.

There are concrete output targets for the MDGs: The goals offer clear, agreed and quantifiable targets to galvanize the rich and poor counties and to hold their leaders to account. This means that they can be objectively verified, but still it leaves the question of process wide open.

Poverty reduction is regarded as a direct result of economic growth. This is indicated clearly in MDG 1 where the relationship between poverty and other key social indicators is clearly defined.

Although the MDGs might not be ambitious enough, they are achievable. As goals set by world leaders they represent the shared ambitions that can be achieved if there is political will to do so. There are no physical, ecological, and technical or other autonomous reasons to make achieving the MDGs impossible.

Reviewing the negative aspects of the MDGs

There is a persistent top down approach leading to lack of ownership and participation of local actors. It is believed to be owned by leaders. The solution by leaders is not to tell their subjects about global targets, which are barely relevant to them. Rather the people should be involved in bringing the targets closer to home, to a level where they become tangible and relevant, and can make a difference to their daily lives.

Furthermore, there is a lack of attention to the intangible dimensions of poverty. It is no secret that basic needs extend beyond material goods to include needs to be valued or treated with dignity, or to be free to participate politically, culturally or economically in society. Other important psychological dimensions of poverty are powerlessness, voicelessness, dependency and humiliation. The MDGS do not deal with the intangibles but rather concentrate on the tangible aspects. This severely affects the credibility of the MDGS.
There is over-emphasis on external finance volumes rather than the reform that would lead to greater participation and ownership. Most African countries normally prepare their budgets based on external assistance. Sometimes donors do not respond, which clearly limits the MDGs. The current volatility and unpredictability of aid flows is a serious problem in meeting the MDGs. This is further complicated by the debt burden.

The MDGs distract attention from the macro economic constraints underpinning the ability of developing counties to access finance. The policy advice offered by the IMF and the World Bank seems to undermine the potential of countries in reaching the MDGs. The goals and conditionality set by the World Bank and IMF are really hindering these countries from achieving the MDGs.

Africa has been struggling to meet the MDGs. It remains a daunting task for countries in Africa to achieve the goals. The goals are not new at all because they duplicate the National Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP). If what is contained in the PRSPs cannot be achieved, then it is like squeezing water out of a stone to achieve the MDGs.

This inter-linkage with the PRSPs creates further complications. With the World Bank pushing a PRSP model and the UN the MDGs, the risks of PRSPs being exclusively or primary designed around the MDG goals appear to be very real. This unleashes the development process in countries where it is more than likely that the action on factors creating and sustaining poverty is completely left out of the countries development plan, which in turn may be directed by the MDG plans. This process twists the locus and ownership of national poverty planning, taking it a long distance away from poor people and their concerns.

Overview and Recommendations

Africa saw some success stories during the 1990s but, on balance, the continent’s record in moving towards the MDGs has been inadequate, especially for the poor. Progress is slow for child mortality, basic education, malnutrition, improved water supply, maternal mortality and gender discrimination in primary enrolment. With the exception of safe water, regional progress was less than one-tenth of the agreed target between1990 and 2000. Since the MDGs are to be achieved over a 25-year span starting in 1990, 40 per cent of the road should have been covered by 2000—meaning that Africa’s progress represents about one-fifth of what should have been accomplished by now. Even worse, little or no progress was achieved in reversing the HIV/AIDS pandemic. HIV prevalence rates continue to rise in numerous countries, whereas only a few succeeded in reducing the spread of the virus. Not only was progress inadequate, much of it by-passed the poor.

Global goals are primarily meant to help improve the situation of the poor and the disadvantaged, not only that of better-off and privileged people. There is no good reason why universal primary education should not yet be a practical reality. Its cost is perfectly affordable; no new technological breakthroughs are needed to get all children in school; there is consensus that it makes good economic sense; and basic education is a fundamental human right that must not be denied to any child. If these conditions are not enough to ensure success, then the question arises as to what it will take to meet the other MDGs.

In opening the Children’s Summit in May 2002, Kofi Annan, UN Secretary-General, stated, “We the grown-ups must reverse this list of failures”. The MDGs remain unfulfilled, but they also remain feasible and affordable.

If the legacy of our generation is to be more than a series of broken promises, then the following is needed: committed leadership, stronger partnerships, extra money, debt cancellation, infrastructure development and deeper participation by the poor. It is not too late to realize the dream by 2015.

* Hellen Tombo is executive director of the Kenya Youth Education and Community Development Programme. She is a member of GCAP and co-chair of the GCAP youth group.

* Please send comments to [email protected]

In Soweto, South Africa, thousands of black school children took to the streets in 1976 to protest the inferior quality of their education. Hundreds of young boys and girls were shot down by apartheid police. To honour the memory of those killed and the courage of those who marched, the Day of the African Child has been celebrated on 16 June every year since 1991. The Day also draws attention to the lives of African children today. In this article Hellen Tombo highlights the negative impact of onerous debt, unfair trade, inefficient aid and poor governance on the lives of African children and youth.

It is estimated that at least 30% of the world's population is aged between 10-24 years while nearly 12% is made up of children between 0-10 years. Out of this population, more than 75% are trapped in abject poverty and have insufficient income levels, if any, and no access to basic education opportunities. Youth and children die as a result of inadequacies in health care and other services, lack basic shelter and are orphaned at an early age. This is in violation of human rights norms as contained in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights (1948).

It is now an open secret that trade injustice; insufficient aid and poor governance compounds this situation. These aspects are co-related and are all closely interlinked to debt. Studies have shown that states are subjected to unfair trade practices in return for aid, culminating in huge debts and unwise decisions from leaders. As Shridath Ramphal puts it, "debt is an oppressive tyranny that strips a country's population their rights." The discussion in the rest of this article places emphasis on how debt, unfair trade, insufficient aid and poor governance has had an impact on the youth and children of Africa.

Unemployment

With increased heavy dependence on aid, developing countries have been unable to create employment opportunities due to heavy budgetary allocations and expenditure. The GDP of these countries is far too low even to maintain the already existing workers. The culmination of this is borrowing.

Such monies have come with strings attached in the name of Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs). One condition contained in SAPs is that nations expecting aid should cut down on their labour force. This has negatively impacted on the youth given that opportunities for public employment are nearly impossible.

Privatisation and liberalization of state owned corporations have serious impacts on the youth. Most foreign investors offer casual jobs, resulting in poor pay and exposure to health risks. Further, workers unions are often not allowed.

Child labour is common. Parents cannot afford to provide for their families, either because of retrenchment or simply because of poor pay. Such families have developed "survival strategies" of engaging their children in labour to substitute a meagre income.

Other serious consequences of the unemployment crisis are child prostitution, street children and children becoming breadwinners for their families, as they take care of their ailing parents who have lost jobs or are too poor to afford health care.

Education

African governments have greatly reduced their expenditure on education, thus failing to commit themselves to "universal basic primary education for all".

Although donor countries have set aside money to support the education sector in many countries, to a large extent the initiative has been harmful to youth and children. Such initiatives have in most cases proved unsustainable. (For example, NARC's ''free primary education for all" in Kenya.) The government was promised funding by donor countries, only for most of them to pull out after the programme was initiated. This led to the evolvement of the cost sharing principle between the government and parents.

In Kenya, liberalization of our education system has seen foreign countries opening up their very expensive universities in our country. They have branded Kenya's public university education a sham. The expensive private universities don't open up job opportunities for our youth, despite pocketing so much money from them.

Trade and environment

Donor countries have made leaders their puppets by forcing them to sign trade agreements that only represent corporate interests. Africa depends on the export of primary commodities. Imports of finished goods expose the public to price violations and huge trade deficits, resulting in an increased debt obligation and meaning a country is unable to utilize its resources to develop the youth.

Trade liberalization and the elimination of barriers to US trade and investment has left hundreds of youth working as casuals in foreign companies. Trade agreements from the West and Europe prevent development of intra-African trade, which could easily create additional markets for talented youths. Unfair trade has also not spared youths striving to be in business. Local products have lost out as consumers prefer imported products.

Aids and health

WHO estimates that at least 30,000 children die daily from malaria and that at least 5,000 youth die daily from HIV/AIDS-related illnesses in Africa alone.

The Bush administration committed $15 billion over five years to fight HIV/AIDS. But the commitment is tied to conditions that have impeded the primary goal. The promotion of abstinence by the Bush administration is a noble cause, but we cannot ignore the fact that youth are exposed to high-risk behaviour. This calls for the distribution of condoms as a control mechanism.

With no funds, the cost of antiretroviral drugs will remain high and very few youth can afford and have access to them. Similarly, governments have had to borrow money to boost their health sectors and fight diseases like malaria.

Insufficient Aid

Donor agents have over the last 10 years been non-committal in giving aid that can sustain government's effort to meet its obligations. Varied reasons for such positions have been given. For example, donors have maintained they will not continue funding corrupt governments or governments that fail to meet their conditions. Some conditions like SAPs have been totally harmful to the people.

Insufficient aid means that a government is not able to offer services like education. Cost sharing (which is unaffordable to most parents) and cutting down on health expenditure are the solutions. Insufficient aid means that the government is unable to support youth initiatives that would help them reshape their lives.

Poor governance

There is perhaps no other better evidence of poor governance than corruption. The costs of corruption on the youth is enormous. First, bribery means that young people have to "buy" their way out through payment for services. For a youth to get a job, a bribe would come in handy. Similarly, in accessing public services like medicine from a hospital, one would be forced to bribe the pharmacist.

Embezzlement culminates in schools, health clinics, roads, sewer systems and other public amenities being in a worse state. Corruption reduces the overall wealth of a country. Thus it discourages business as well as investors from operating.

Conclusion

Any achievement of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP) and Millennium Development Goals (MDG) targets, especially with regards the youth, requires due attention to strategies aimed at focusing on how debt, unfair trade, insufficient aid and poor governance has impacted on this population sector.

The MDG targets relating to both youth and children (education attainment, gender balance in education, improved maternal health, combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and decent employment opportunities, sexual and reproductive health etc) have largely been made unachievable because of issues to do with debt.

The 2015 target of the MDGs is long-term, and if the youth are to benefit, then time for global justice aimed at influencing the world global agenda on how debts have negatively impacted on them is now.

2005 offers opportunities for youth mobilization. The key dates for action that lie ahead (the G8 Summit, the UN Millennium Summit, the WTO Ministerial and other local events as well as regional events such as the Day of the African child, coupled with white band days) are some opportunities for the youth to get on board en masse and add their voice.

The youth should wake up to the call and add their voice to the demand for the cancellation of debts. It is unrealistic to expect that poor countries can meet the MDGs without extra international support, thus the youth are called to mobilise and pressure G8 countries to cancel debt. In support of GCAP, the youth should develop a platform and challenge the World Bank and IMF to allow all people to make decisions on how to run their countries.

* Hellen Tombo is executive director of the Kenya Youth Education and Community Development Programme (KYCEP).

* Please send comments to [email protected]

As the Africa leg of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP) campaign gears up, Hellen Tombo explains that the symbolic white bands that will be worn by campaigners are not indicative of surrender. Rather they are a demand to world leaders to cancel crippling debt burdens and end the unjust trade rules that are killing African children and youth.

“I am a symbol of many of the children and youth of Africa wearing white, crying out to be heard.”

The wearing of white bands is not significant of surrender. Instead, it represents the innocence of the children and youth who make up half of the population of the continent. Our white wristband defines our stance in solidarity with the Global Call to Action against Poverty.

Twenty years ago, a cry was heard. Soweto wailed for her slain children as they were mowed down by proponents of the apartheid regime as they peacefully marched along the road to demand their rights. Today the world mourns for the 30 000 plus children and youth that are killed everyday through denial of basic human rights.

Children and youth are at the core of GCAP. African countries are called upon to put in place statutory, developmental and governance interventions to address the plight of the children and the youth. As world leaders prepare to meet at the Gleneagles G8 summit in July, the voices of children and youth call for an increase in aid and debt cancellation. Answering this call is key to opening up space for children and youth to enjoy their basic human rights. The aim of wearing the whiteband and joining the GCAP community in this struggle is to create widespread mobilisation of youth and children to demand action and accountability from leaders in their commitments to eliminate poverty.

Poverty is a violation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which is further compounded by trade injustices that keep people poor. The Convention on the Rights of the Child, like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other national and international statutes, protects the rights of all people to an adequate standard of living and well-being. These include education, food, clothing, housing, and medical care: rights whose achievement is undermined by inadequate commitment and policies that do not favor the implementation of globally-agreed upon declarations and statutes.

Today, millions of children and youth are trapped in abject poverty and lack access to basic education. Every day more than 800 million people, a high percentage being children and youth, go to bed with empty stomachs. HIV/AIDS kills more than 2 million people every year and adds to the league of orphans. Hunger is a daily norm rather than an exception: every year six million children die of malnutrition before their fifth birthday.

Who can tell the torments of the grave better than the dead? Who can fathom the discomfort that a poor girl has to live with month after month, year in year out due to a lack of sanitary pads. Unjust trade policies have destroyed the social infrastructure so much that more than school fees, it is the shame of using leaves or pieces of mattresses as sanitary towels that is locking the girl child out of the school system.

If you are a leader who has put food in the dustbin while 8 000 children and youth die of hunger in the last 24 hours, be the first to cast a stone. Cast it if you have not uttered the word ‘my right’ while six year olds are being married off, thousands consoling themselves with drugs due to unemployment. If these leaders cannot cast a stone, let them put on a white band and highlight the issues afflicting the children and the youth, such as:

- Children and young people whose school uniform doubles as their Sunday best because they cannot afford another set of clothes.
- Serial rapists who traumatise girls and young women.
- Children and young people who are exposed to the danger of rape by the long distances they have to cover in search of water or fire wood or forced to commercial sex by the need to feed siblings.
- Children and youth who are left out of government strategies and national plans.
- Children and youth who have to drop out of school to take care of their siblings when their parents die of HIV/Aids.
- Girls and young women who are married off as property.
- Children and youth who have to balance heavy home duties and school work on an empty stomach.
- Youth who have to console themselves with alcohol, ganging up and committing crime to get money to buy food and clothes, getting into drugs and roaming the streets due to lack of employment.

Children and the youth can be empowered to take charge of their lives. While some people may dislike and work against the conditions that would force them into accepting these challenges we want to ensure that children and the youth are mentored and provided for so that we are ready for any obstacle. Do this not for the children but with them.

Efforts to tackle poverty and deliver sustainable development, as pledged in the Millennium Declaration, have been grossly inadequate. Governments too often fail to address the needs of children and youth. Aid from rich countries is inadequate in both quality and quantity. Rich countries have yet to act on their repeated pledges to tackle unfair trade rules and practices: promises of debt cancellation have not been realized.

Debt servicing currently costs the world’s developing nations $39 billion annually. This, often times illegitimate debt, accounts for the lack of funding for the most basic healthcare, education, access to clean water, food, shelter etc. Behind the cold statistics of failed promises and empty rhetoric are lives of real children and youth: millions of children and youth abandoned; without basic health care, sleeping on the pavements in our cities. These children and young people must be cared for, taken in and treated as children.

Poverty is a very unnatural and abnormal state. It is man made and can be eradicated and overcome by the actions of human beings. Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity; it is the protection of a fundamental human right to dignity and a decent life. We do not wear white to surrender to poverty. We display our wristbands to mark our solidarity in the calling of others to action against poverty. It is a reminder to the G8 leaders and world leaders in the UN summit and WTO that with greatness comes responsibility: 2005 is the time to demand they take responsibility.

Naturally trade can create prosperity for Africa as it has in other regions. However, our actions have designed the same trade to deny many children the right to live to see their fifth birthday. We must address the widening gap between the rich and the poor if we aim to safeguard the security of our children and youth for today and tomorrow. Trade must be facilitated in such a way that it builds a future asset base for all children and youth irrespective of their culture, race, sex or creed. All children and youth worldwide must be born free: free from debt and free from any form of deprivation. Somebody must answer the cries of the children and youth.

I am crying as one of the millions of African children and youth. Debt is killing us, trade injustices are killings us, poverty is killing us, empty promises are killing us…

My call to our African and world leaders is:

We need strategies, interventions and real programs to serve us today and for the future of Africa and the world…

African leaders, you have had your priorities wrong. It is not too late to change. Let the children and youth be your priority and you will save the world…

World leaders, cancel the debt – it is killing us. We demand trade justice and better and more aid. We demand that world leaders keep their promises in achieving the MDGs.

* Hellen Tombo is executive director of the Kenya Youth Education and Community Development Programme (KYCEP).

* Please send comments to [email protected]