Disaster Breaking News....

Disasters further set back RP’s anti-poverty goal

By Saudi Ali

Edited and updated 16:58:00 10/20/2009

Filed Under: Poverty, Disasters (general) Flood

MANILA, Philippines—Barely six years before the deadline for achieving its Millennium Development Goals (MDG), the Philippines continues to lag behind on its MDG targets.

Worse, the series of natural disasters that hit the country have further set back government's efforts to reduce, if not eradicate, extreme poverty by 2015.

With the Arroyo administration “on its last mile," it would be great if they could focus hard on the achievement of the country's MDG goals and meeting the needs of the poorest people of this country and leave a great legacy,” said Salil Shetty, director of the United Nations Millennium Campaign.

Shetty was in the country to “remind your leaders of the promises they made” on the country's MDGs.

According to Shetty, the MDGs must be brought to the local level where their achievement will either be won or lost.

When interviewed, Shetty stressed the need for “disaster-proofing” the MDGs, or integrating disaster risk reduction into government's development planning and policies so it could contribute to the achievement of the country's MDGs.

The visiting UN official also called for “specialized emergency services for the poor, especially women and children, the most vulnerable sector every time calamities strike.”

Shetty said he was confident the government could do all these, noting “the Philippines is better equipped in disaster management than many countries.”

“You have a long history of having to deal with disasters ... Compared to other countries like Indonesia and India, where I come from, you're not too bad. But there's always room for improvement,” he added.

UN Millennium Campaign deputy director Minar Pimple called disaster-proofing the “need of the hour.”

“Efforts to avoid or at least mitigate further losses are a must by all concerned if achievement of the MDGs by 2015 is to be a realistic proposition,” Pimple said.

In a report furnished the Philippine Daily Inquirer, the United Nations representative office in Manila said that “while the Philippines is progressing well in its bid to achieve most of the MDG targets, faster pace of gains is urgently needed to reach some of the 2015 goals, especially because poverty has increased in the country.”

“Specifically, current trending shows that targets for Goal 2 (achieving universal primary education) and Goal 5 (improving maternal health) are least likely to be achieved. And while the country is still within the target of less than one percent of the population for HIV/AIDS, the rising number of HIV cases has become a cause for alarm as well.”

The spread of killer diseases is Goal 6. The other MDGs are: eradicating extreme poverty and hunger; promoting gender equality and empowering women; reducing child mortality; ensuring environmental sustainability; and developing a global partnership for development.

According to the UN office, “there is a need to raise adequate resources to fund the achievement of the MDGs, reverse the trends in social budgeting, sustain high economic pro-poor growth to reduce income inequality, and address conflict issues which hinder development.”

“The country's high population growth rate is diluting the gains of economic growth,” it pointed out. “The larger the population a country has the greater will be the pressure on basic social services and on natural resources.”

Here, “more than one million babies are born every year. They will be needing resources in the future, such as health care, schooling, food, clothing and later on, employment. Even today, these needs are not being met.”

According to the UN office, “investing in population and reproductive health is cost effective. Couples who plan and limit their family size can spare more funds for their children's education, food and health.”

“A study showed that as much as 70 percent of the cost of programs for basic social services can be sourced out from savings incurred due to low population growth. Investing in contraceptives would also save the government some P800 million a year in medical costs for unintended pregnancies.”

The country also needs to “adopt a “not business as usual” policy and this means strengthening good governance, demonstrating political will, mobilizing financial support, reorienting priorities and policies, capacity building and reaching out to civil society and the private sector and engaging national support,” said the UN office.

The Philippines “has the fertile ground to achieve the MDGs and it must continue to explore this potential to its fullest and plant the seeds that will yield the best returns.”

According to Shetty, “at any given goal, about 40-50 (out of 189 countries which signed the Millennium Declaration) are on tract of meeting the MDGs ... The Philippines is almost there.”

Based on the 2009 Global MDG Report, “progress is moving too slow to achieve the MDGs by 2015.”

“While data is not available to assess the full impact of the economic crisis, progress on Goal 1 (eradicating extreme poverty) has slowed down due to the crisis. The most damage has been done to the number of people living in extreme poverty. The World Bank estimated this number to be around 55 million to 90 million higher than expected because of the crisis.”

Said the same report: “72 million children are out of school. Half of them have never been inside a classroom ... Strong partnerships and strong national policies have resulted in protecting the ozone layer while the world is on track to meet the safe water target ... But the least progress of all has been made on maternal health.”

According to the UN Millennium Campaign, “the MDGs are feasible, but action is needed. They can be achieved and they must be achieved because they are our future.”