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Environment Inside - 4.8 Enabling an environmental contribution to meeting all Millennium Development Goals
 

Adopted in 2000, the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), each accompanied by various targets and a range of indicators, form a guiding framework with specific targets and timeframes to address all dimensions of poverty reduction including health, education and gender equality (Table 4.2).

 

Table 4.2: The Millennium Development Goals and Indicators

Goals and targets

Indicators for monitoring progress

Goal 1 Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

Reduce by half the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day
  • Proportion of population below $1 per day
  • Poverty gap ratio
  • Share of poorest quintile in national income or consumption

Reduce by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger
  • Prevalence of underweight children under five years of age
  • Proportion of the population below minimum level of dietary energy consumption

Goal 2 Achieve universal primary education

Ensure that all boys and girls complete a full course of primary schooling
  • Net enrolment ratio in primary education
  • Proportion of pupils starting Grade 1 who reach Grade 5
  • Literacy rate of 15-24 year olds

Goal 3 Promote gender equality and empower women

Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015
  • Ratio of girls to boys in primary, secondary, and tertiary education
  • Ratio of literate women to men 15-24 years old
  • Share of women in wage employment in the non-agricultural sector
  • Proportion of seats held by women in national parliaments

Goal 4 Reduce child mortality

Reduce by two thirds the mortality rate among children under five
  • Under-five mortality rate
  • Infant mortality rate
  • Proportion of 1 year-old children immunized against measles

Goal 5 Improve maternal health

Reduce by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio
  • Maternal mortality ratio
  • Proportion of births attended by skilled health personnel

Goal 6 Combat HIV-AIDS, malaria and other diseases

Halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AID
  • HIV prevalence among 15-24 year-old pregnant women (UNAIDS)
  • Condom use rate of the contraceptive prevalence rate and population aged 15-24 years with correct knowledge of HIV/AIDS
  • Number of children orphaned by HIV/AIDSRatio of school attendance of orphans to school attendance of non-orphans aged 10-14

Halt and begin to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases
  • Prevalence and death rates associated with malaria (WHO)
  • Proportion of population in malaria risk areas using effective prevention and treatment measures (UNICEF)
  • Prevalence and death rates associated with tuberculosis (WHO)
  • Proportion of tuberculosis cases detected and cured under directly-observed treatment short courses (WHO)

Goal 7 Ensure environmental sustainability

Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes; reverse loss of environmental resources
  • Forested land as percentage of land area (FAO)
  • Ratio of area protected to maintain biological diversity to surface area (UNEP)
  • Energy supply (apparent consumption; Kg oil equivalent) per $1,000 (PPP) GDP
  • CO2 emissions (per capita) and consumption of ozone-depleting CFCs (ODP tons)
  • Proportion of population using solid fuels

Reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water
  • Proportion of the population with sustainable access to an improved water source
  • Proportion of the population with access to improved sanitation

Achieve significant improvement in lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers, by 2020

  • Proportion of population with secure tenure

Goal 8 Develop a global partnership for sustainable development

Develop further an open, rule-based, predictable, non-discriminatory trading and financial system Includes a commitment to good governance, development, and poverty reduction — both nationally and internationally

Some of the indicators listed below are monitored separately for the least developed countries (LDCs), Africa, landlocked developing countries and small island developing States.

Official development assistance (ODA)

  • Net ODA, total and to the least developed countries, as percentage of OECD/DAC donors gross national income
  • Proportion of total bilateral, sector-allocable ODA of OECD/DAC donors to basic social services (basic education, primary health care, nutrition, safe water and sanitation)
  • Proportion of bilateral official development assistance of OECD/DAC donors that is untied
  • ODA received in landlocked developing countries as a proportion of their gross national incomes
  • ODA received in small island developing States as a proportion of their gross national incomes

Market access

  • Proportion of total developed country imports (by value and excluding arms) from developing countries and least developed countries, admitted free of duty
  • Average tariffs imposed by developed countries on agricultural products and textiles and clothing from developing countries
  • Agricultural support estimate for OECD countries as a percentage of their gross domestic product
  • Proportion of ODA provided to help build trade capacity

Debt sustainability

  • Total number of countries that have reached their HIPC decision points and number that have reached their HIPC completion points (cumulative)
  • Debt relief committed under HIPC Initiative
  • Debt service as a percentage of exports of goods and services

Address the special needs of the least developed countries Includes: tariff and quota free access for least developed countries’ exports; enhanced programme of debt relief for HIPCs and cancellation of official bilateral debt; and more generous ODA for countries committed to poverty reduction

Address the special needs of landlocked countries and small island developing States (through the Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island states and the 22nd General Assemble provisions)

Deal comprehensively with developing countries' debt problems through national and international measures to make debt sustainable in the long term

In cooperation with the developing countries, develop decentand productive work for youth

  • Unemployment rate of young people aged 15-24 years, each sex and total

In cooperation with pharmaceutical companies, provide access to affordable essential drugs in developing countries

  • Proportion of population with access to affordable essential drugs on a sustainable basis

In cooperation with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies— especially information and communications technologies

  • Telephone lines and cellular subscribers per 100 population
  • Personal computers in use per 100 population

 

Most of the targets are meant to be achieved by 2015 using the situation in 1990 as the baseline against which progress is measured and evaluated (although the data necessary to monitor trends is reportedly incomplete and variable). Periodic assessments are undertaken and the latest report shows that there is still a long way to go before the MDGs will be met (UN 2009).

“More than halfway to the 2015 deadline to achieve the MDGs, major advances in the fight against poverty and hunger have begun to slow or even reverse as a result of the global economic and food crises….. Despite many successes, overall progress has been too slow for most of the targets to be met by 2015” (http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/)

Some critics are skeptical about the sustainability credentials of the MDGs, considering that they have proven useful to focus efforts on only part of the sustainable development agenda. The linkages among the MDGs make an integrated approach essential for their effective delivery in strategies and actions at and across all levels, from multilateral to local. A mix of old and new policy instruments and funding mechanisms are used for this purpose. For example, Poverty Reduction Strategies have become the tool of choice for multilateral organisations, bilateral agencies and their client countries. Many integration challenges are encountered in their application, including:

  • Ensuring policy consistency and coherence of actions, which requires evaluating their outcome in relation to all goals, not just the one targeted (Abaza et al. 2004);

  • Taking better account of the environment in the predominantly economic thrust of poverty reduction strategy papers (Bojo et al. 2004); and

  • Incorporating the principles of sustainable development into the design and implementation of country assistance policies and programmes as called for in MDG 7 (environmental sustainability).

At the 2005 World Summit, the Poverty Environment Partnership (PEP), a consortium of international organisations, registered concern that actions on certain goals had become side tracked, particularly on MDG 7 (to ensure environmental sustainability), which is seen as underpinning all of the others (UNDP et al. 2005c). In preparation for this summit, the PEP sought to reinvigorate political attention and commitment to the environmental challenges central to achieving the MDGs by:

    • Making the Case for Environment and the MDGs by presenting best evidence on the economic importance of environment to poverty reduction and pro-poor growth, and identifying priority areas for improved investment to achieve MDG7 and contribute to the broader MDG agenda;

    • Holding High-Visibility Summit Events on Environment and the MDGs to focus Summit attention on the critical role of sound environmental management for the MDGs and the broader Summit agenda, and to showcase and generate wider political commitment to scaling-up action beyond the Summit;

    • Supporting Summit Follow-Up Action on Environment and the MDGs by positioning PEP members collectively and individually to take forward the decisions of the Summit and mobilizing a more broad-based coalition on environment for achieving the MDGs.

This work produced a suite of influential analytical reports (Box 4.8).

Box 4.8: Reports produced by the work of the Poverty Environment Partnership

  • Poverty reduction (UNDP/UNEP/IIED/IUCN/WRI, 2005a);

  • Assessing environment’s contribution to poverty reduction (UNDP/UNEP/IIED/IUCN/WRI, 2005b); This report examines how countries can use information and assessment methods to measure and report on progress towards MDG 7. It recommends rethinking some of the traditional indicators and adding new ones to provide countries with meaningful measures of progress toward reversing the loss of environmental resources. It also identifies a number of additional approaches that can be used to measure progress towards one or both of the MDG7 sub-targets:
    1. Using an ecosystem-based approach to interpret targets and identify and develop indicators
    2. Indicators for integrating environment into the MDGs;
    3. Assessment methods for integration – such as EIA, SEA and SA.

  • Environment and the MDGs (UNDP/UNEP/IIED/IUCN/WRI, 2005c);

Other key PEP outputs include reports on:

All these reports are available at: www.undp.org/pei/peppapers.html)





 
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