ACHIEVING THE MDGS (OCT 22, 2010)

AT the beginning of the 21st Century, the United Nations and its member states committed themselves to what has now been accepted as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
These are: Eradicating extreme poverty and hunger; Achieving universal primary education; Promoting gender equality and empowering women; Reducing child mortality; Improving maternal health; Combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; Ensuring environmental sustainability; and Developing a global partnership for development.
Recent reports issued by the United Nations have showed that most developing countries lag behind in the achievement of the eight goals set by the United Nations.
Ghana is touted as making progress in four out of the eight MGDs, and indications are that the country could do better.
While the challenges may be daunting, the real issues relating to achieving the MGDs have got to do with political commitment and the will to pursue pro-poor policies as rightly stated by the former United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan.
His call on African governments to sustain the political commitment and momentum towards achieving the MDGs could not have come at a better time.
It is a fact that the lack of political will and commitment to address issues of equity and fairness in favour of a large segment of our population who are vulnerable accounts for the situation where the African continent lags behind its development goals.
The DAILY GRAPHIC draws the attention to the implementation of social intervention policies such as the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP), the Free Maternal Care, the National Health Insurance Scheme, the Free School Feeding Programme and the Free School Uniforms initiative as examples of the policies likely to make an impact in the lives of the ordinary people.
However, we wish to state that in most cases, such policies do not go far enough to the vulnerable people in society, while in some cases those who can afford such services become the beneficiaries of these policies.
The gap between the rural poor and urban centres in the country calls for policies that address the social needs of people in rural Ghana.
That is not to say the DAILY GRAPHIC is oblivious of the scary urban poverty imposed on us by rural-urban migration.
But the reality of Ghana’s economy is that majority of Ghanaians reside in rural Ghana. The extension of social services and interventions that have the potential to lift the lives of people in these areas is enormously essential.
The DAILY GRAPHIC observes that even in capitalist societies in the western world, social safety nets abound because of the governments’ social contract with the people from whom they have the power to govern.
One would say the comparison is too far-fetched, but we hesitate to add that such comparison gives us the opportunity not to re-invent the wheel when it comes to adopting pro-poor policies.
The call by Kofi Annan, at a high-level session on the MDGs organised by the United Nations Foundation in Accra yesterday, therefore, gives an indication that there is more job to be done, for which the government needs to adopt other innovative policies to deal with our challenges.
After all, governments are voted into power on the basis of a social contract with the electorate to improve the lives of the people who gave them the opportunity to manage the affairs of state for the mutual good.