Recession affecting ability to meet MDGs

THE economic recession has had a significant impact on the success of countries reaching the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Saying that it was not likely that there would be an extension of the 2015 target, new United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Resident Representative, Stephen O’Malley, noted that the focus would be more on building on successes.

“Many countries in the region had already made significant strides towards the Millennium Development Goals. The challenge is to sustain this level of development and to continue to increase it,” he said.

Speaking to the media last week Thursday, O’Malley continued, “The decision made by many countries of the world is that we have set a target to do what we can by 2015 and so I don’t think that there will be an extension of that target in a sense. What that debate is about is how can we build on the very real successes for a number of countries since the MDGs were adopted. How do we now build on this after 2015, and what follows the MDGs and this discussion will start this week as the General Assembly meets in New York. What does the post-2015 agenda look like. So it’s less about let’s move the targets or lengthen the targets of the MDGs, but more about what comes now.”

He claimed that the crucial commitment resonating with all countries was that no state could be left behind during this next period and that, according to him, was the “link to ending extreme poverty but also to reducing the levels of inequality and exclusion around the world”.

“So I think we are starting to see the shape to come and I think that we will be seeing that more clearly over the next few weeks from the discussion in New York to start to lay out the foundation of what the world after the MDGs will look like,” he argued. (JMB)