Seven years ago, in its Millennium Summit in New York, the United Nations General Assembly addressed the challenge of global poverty. As part of its Millennium Declaration, it identified various Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that had to be achieved by 2015. Effectively this year’s General Assembly is the half-way point on the journey towards the realisation of the MDGs.

The General Assembly will therefore have to pose the critical questions – what progress has been made towards the achievement of the MDGs, and what more should be done to ensure that the world community of nations realises this objective? Correct and honest answers to these questions are of vital importance to the billions across the globe who continue to suffer from the terrible scourges of poverty, hunger and underdevelopment.

When it was adopted in 2000, the Millennium Declaration brought great hope to these masses. It communicated the message that the international community, combining both developed and developing countries, had, at last, resolved to make poverty history, everywhere in the world.

Special needs
Of great importance to us as Africans, the Millennium Declaration made it a point specifically to recognise and acknowledge the special needs of the African continent. In this regard it said: “We will support the consolidation of democracy in Africa and assist Africans in their struggle for lasting peace, poverty eradication, and sustainable development, thereby bringing Africa into the mainstream of the world economy.”

These pledges were fully in keeping with the objectives set by the African Union and its development programme, the Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD).

We therefore welcomed them as a firm signal that the peoples of the world were fully committed to walk the long and hard road to Africa’s renewal, side by side with us. This commitment was further confirmed when the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution to formally support NEPAD, which has been followed by practical steps.

However, it is commonly agreed that between now and 2015, the second half of the period the General Assembly had set for the achievement of the MDGs, far more will have to be done than was the case during the first half. Indeed, the 2007 General Assembly will have to make the honest admission that the world community of nations has so far not lived up to the solemn undertakings it made to the poor in Africa and the rest of the world.

A clear sense of the challenge ahead of us can be found in the assessment made by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) about how many of the 53 African countries are likely to achieve the MDGs.

With regard to MDG 1, to halve extreme poverty and hunger by 2015, the ECA says only 13 African countries are likely to reduce poverty to the required degree.

Dismal story
Only 14 countries are likely to achieve MDG 2 of providing universal primary education; merely 7 countries are likely to achieve MDG 3, promoting gender parity at the level of secondary school education and promoting women and equality of women; a mere 8 are likely to achieve MDG 4 of reducing child mortality; and just 9 countries are likely to achieve MDG 5, cutting the maternal mortality rate.

For MDG 6, a mere 8 countries are likely to meet the HIV and AIDS reduction targets, and only 13 with regard to malaria; only 11 countries are likely to meet the water requirements in rural areas and only 7, the urban sanitation requirements of MDG 7, ensuring environmental sustainability; MDG 8 targets the development of a global partnership for development.

The Economic Commission for Africa thus tells a dismal and distressing story: the overwhelming majority of countries on our continent will, for the foreseeable future, remain mired in a deeply dehumanising state of poverty, misery, and underdevelopment.

– IPS (The writer is the President of South Africa.)