Even
though Africa will most likely not meet all eight Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs) by 2015, the continent has shown remarkable progress. But Africa still
lags when it comes to targets like eradicating poverty.
Fifteen African countries are among the top 20 nations which
have made the greatest progress toward reaching the MDGs. Overall, Burkina
Faso, Mozambique and Namibia have done exceptionally well according to a report
published by the African Union (AU), United Nations Economic Commission for Africa
(UNECA), United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the African Development
Bank. Most of the African countries are expected to meet four of the eight
targets: They will have achieved universal primary education, made strides
toward gender equality and pushed forward in the fight against HIV/AIDS,
tuberculosis, malaria and other diseases.
"If you just look at the progress achieved so far, one has
to say that Africa has worked its way up to the leading pack," said Lena
Giesbert of the German Institute of Global and Area Studies (GIGA).
That doesn't mean, however, that all goals are going to be met by 2015. On a
global scale, the continent was in a rather weak state when the MDGs were
agreed on. That's why recent progress is "surprising in a positive way,"
Giesbert said.
Rwanda has done especially well, according to Ayodele Odusola, a
policy advisor at the UNDP's Regional Bureau for Africa who was involved in
preparing the report. The country has pushed hard to empower women and
introduced a 30-percent quota for female members of parliament in 2003.
"Look at the number of women in national parliament -
Rwanda has the largest in the world," said Odusola, adding that around 56
percent of the members of parliament are now women.
More kids in primary school
Some of the goals go hand in hand - for instance, empowering
women can also be achieved by educating girls. Providing primary education to
all children is another target Africa is expected to achieve. According to the
report, enrolment rates have increased to over 90 percent in most African
countries. Niger managed to boost its enrolment rates by 100 percent since
1990, Odusola said.
It's important to make sure kids start school at the right age,
that they attend classes regularly and that they actually graduate, said Susan
Karuti, regional education advisor for the MDG center at the Columbia Global
Centers in Nairobi.
"We have structures like the community education workers,
who go from door to door or hold community forums," Karuti said. "The
idea is to have community members who understand these families, who know about
the special needs in each of the communities."
School meal programs that provide children with a warm meal and
reducing the distances to schools have helped convince parents to send their
kids.
It's also crucial to keep girls in school; they tend to stop
attending classes for various reasons, sometimes because they get married at a
young age or they begin menstruating but lack the necessary sanitary products.
"We've been intervening as well as far as that is concerned
to provide that particular gadget that they need to keep them in school,"
Karuti said.
Now, that enrolment rates are up, the focus needs to shift
toward providing better quality of education, Karuti said. "Our next focus
will be looking at 'How do we improve both numeracy and literacy skills?'"
Another remarkable success has been achieved in the fight
against HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria, the report found. Bed nets with insecticides
have helped prevent malaria; better access to antiretroviral drugs has helped
suppress the HI virus. Much has been done to prevent
mother-to-child-transmission, said Maureen Adudans, regional HIV/AIDS advisor
for the MDG center.
But challenges remain.
"We still have to remember and acknowledge the fact that much of the
epidemic - or a number of the people who are affected by this epidemic - still
remain within Africa," Adudans pointed out.
Prevalence rates still remain higher among women, she said,
adding that women still account for 60 percent of new infections within the
continent.
Usually it is men who decide matters of contraception and
protection against sexually-transmitted diseases in a relationship, Adudans
said, adding: "We are still not quite where we would want to be in terms
of women empowerment and what women can do in terms of stepping up and access
health care services."
Many targets are not going to be met
Despite the fast pace in racing toward achieving the MDGs,
Africa as a whole won't succeed in reducing extreme poverty and hunger by half.
In 2010, 48.5 percent of the people in Sub-Saharan Africa were living below the
extreme poverty line - that means getting by with less than $1.25 (0.95 euros)
a day. In 1990, extreme poverty stood at 56.5 percent.
GIGA's Giesbert said that it's crucial to differentiate between
the individual African nations.
"Countries such as Ghana, Uganda, Ethiopia and Rwanda have experienced
growth that has not been fed by the resource sector alone. Other countries have
been left behind in terms of poverty reduction," she said. "Little
growth and little poverty reduction can be observed in Sahel countries such as
Niger, Chad, Mali or Burkina Faso, but also other countries in West and Central
Africa due to economic and political instability."
But Africa has made significant progress even when it comes to
those targets that are likely not going to be met by 2015 - like improving
maternal mortality rates. According to the UN's Odusola, rates were reduced by
42 percent - well short of the 75 percent by which they were supposed to drop.
He points to the Safe Motherhood Program in the Nigerian state
of Ondo as a success story. It provides pregnant women with mobile phones to
reach nurses and doctors 24/7 and allows them to request house calls.
Mozambique has taken another route, providing mothers-to-be with "waiting
homes," where they have access to free drugs, free treatment and free
maternal care, Odusola said.
In terms of post-2015 development goals, Odusola says Africa
needs to continue to tackle different forms of inequality: Income inequality,
gender inequality, inequality between rural and urban centers.
That view is echoed by GIGA's Giesbert who says Africa certainly is on the
right track. "One shouldn't look at MDGs as an ultimate goal for 2015 but
rather as a milestone."