Continent Can Meet And Shoot Past MDGs

Can Africa fulfill the Millennium Development Goals by 2015? There is a generalised doubt that the MDGs, may not be met on schedule in a majority of African states. Official reports and anecdotal evidence suggest that at the current pace even by 2050 the goals may still remain unmet by these states.

The situation is not helped by the fact that most of the reports available are usually aggregated, hence the negative conclusion that Africa's progress is at best very slow and patchy. Like all generalisations and aggregated statistics they hide the specific, more positive picture of steady progress on a number of the goals in quite a few countries across Africa.

It also panders to the fashionable Afro-pessimism that caricatures events in Africa promoting embedded attitudes of 'hopeless Africa', 'helpless people and continent' that needs the help and handout of everybody else except its own peoples and leaders.

It is rather late in the day to be asking if Africa can meet the MDGs or not. Still more pointless are the criticisms of the goals as being too minimal. We are half way through and those questions are unhelpful especially among campaigners who are committed to holding their governments to account for these commitments.

A more proactive way is to ask what can be done to fill the obvious gaps that still exist which may prevent countries from meeting the goals. If you can halve poverty nobody will stop you from eradicating it.

Almost in all African countries there has been remarkable progress in education in terms of enrolment in schools. There is universal access to education across the countries that have allowed millions of girls and boys who would not have seen the inside of classrooms to do so.

Ghana, Uganda, Rwanda, Nigeria, Burkina Faso and others are good example of the rapid enrolment in schools. On Child mortality Malawi is only second to Costa Rica in the dramatic drop in child deaths (over 30%) in the past three years. The same Malawi that used to rank as 'poorest country in the world'.

A country that was recipient of food aid a few years ago has now become food donor to some of its poorer neighbours including Zimbabwe. On controlling the spread of HIV/Aids Uganda used to be a lone star but a few other countries have become even more aggressive in fighting the scourge.

Huge numbers of African children today have better chances of survival than 10 years ago. More and more are likely to live beyond their 5th birthdays and have hope of going to primary school and even better chances of going for higher education as countries upscale their investments in education and move beyond universal primary education to secondary education.

However there are issues around quality, retention in schools, rate of dropout between boys and girls etc. But quantitative changes are important steps as countries deal with quality issues. We cannot say that more children should not go to school until all schools are of the same quality. Both go hand in hand.

The external environment is also changing as international partners are held to more scrutiny and challenged to walk the walk as fast as they do the talk.

Debt relief has not been universal and a majority of African states have not become beneficiaries but the minority (Uganda, Mozambique, Ghana, Rwanda, Malawi, Zambia, etc) that have got it are generally transforming the gains into meaningful dividends on a number of MDGs.

Those not qualified like Nigeria but renegotiated discounts on the national debt have increased the country's financial credibility but also it now has a virtual fund of more than one billion dollars that is devoted to MDGs.

So the question is not whether we can meet the goals or not but why this country is doing well on X number of goals and country Y is not performing.

By concentrating on "we can't meet it", we are letting political leaders off the hook of accountability for commitments they made voluntarily to their own citizens.

Seven years may not be long but it is certainly long enough for all the countries to change their policy direction and resource allocation that prioritize the needs of the poor and accelerate fulfillment of the MDGs.

African citizens have a duty to remind their leaders about these commitments and be vigilant in demanding that they are met and even go beyond them where possible. If the goals are not met it will not just be because of government insensitivity but also citizen complacency or indifference.