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| New World Bank Report Confirms NGO Fears that Millennium Development Goals will be Missed in the HIPC Countries By Romilly Greenhill, Jubilee Research at NEF 2nd May 2002 In February 2002, Jubilee Research at NEF and the Jubilee Debt Campaign - the two UK based successors to the Jubilee 2000 campaign - released a report warning that the 42 HIPC countries would not reach the United Nations Millennium Development Goals without total debt cancellation, plus substantial increases in aid . Now, analysis undertaken by the World Bank and released at the recent Spring Meetings in Washington, appears to confirm these fears. In the latest version of the World Development Indicators , the World Bank has warned that, while the world as whole might be on-track to reach the first goal of halving world poverty, other regions are falling drastically behind. In particular, Sub Saharan Africa, where 32 of the 42 HIPCs are located, has very little hope of meeting the Goals. While progress varies across the goals, almost all indicators show that Sub Saharan Africa is falling further and further behind. There is no way that Sub Saharan Africa will halve the proportion of people living in poverty by 2015. Even with growth rates of 3.6% - higher than the average for the region during the 1990s - poverty will only reduce from about 47% of the population now to about 39% in 2015. Because of population growth, this means that, by 2015, there will be 45 million more poor people living in Sub Saharan Africa. Progress in achieving Universal Primary Education (UPE) is slightly more encouraging. In all regions, a higher proportion of children are completing school now than in 1990. However, progress is still too slow to meet the 2015 goal. Moreover, children can only complete school if they live beyond their fifth birthday. And the figures for child mortality are chilling. Only 37 countries are on track to reduce child mortality by two thirds by 2015, most of these in middle income countries. In Sub Saharan Africa, child mortality, even as a percentage of live births, will increase, rather than fall, by 2015. The list goes on. Access to water in rural areas has been getting steadily worse since 1990 in all regions except South Asia. Forest loss is accelerating, with 530 square kilometres of forest being lost in Sub Saharan Africa since 1990, a loss that is only marginally compensated by the gain in forest cover in high income countries. The message is clear. The Millennium Development Goals will soon have no more relevance to poor people in Africa than any of the other grand statements that have been made by the leaders of the world - and in particular the rich world - since 1945. The fact that the region which is falling furthest behind in achieving the Goals is also the region where most of the heavily indebted countries are located, is no coincidence. Debt is not the only cause of poverty and poor human development, but it is one of the causes. It is time for the world's leaders to stop ignoring the prognosis of Jubilee Research and others, and to start performing on debt relief. |
