Millennium Development Goals - Research Paper Example

What is extreme poverty? To what degree would you describe meeting Goal Target of the Millennium Development Goal as a "success"? Contents Contents 2 Introduction 3 Discussion 3 Goal 1 Target 1 of the Millennium Development Goal 4 Conclusion 9 References 10 Introduction The share of world population in the developing world who were living below US $ 1.25 a day fell to 25 percent from 42 percent between 1990 and 2005. This reduced the number of poor in the world by 445 million. China had led the way in global poverty reduction. Between 1990 and 2005 it has reduced its poverty rate to 16 percent from 60 percent. Further in developing economies the headcount ratio fell to 28 percent from 36 percent. The challenge of poverty reduction has been deepened by recent economic and financial crisis since it had slowed the GDP growth rate in many middle and low income countries. With it there has been a considerable drop in incomes which resulted in additional 50 million people being left in extreme poverty in 2009. Based on the projections the global poverty which is measured at $ 1.25 a day will fall to 15 percent by 2015 and it will leave 918 million people below the poverty line. Though over the past three decades poverty has declined rapidly, but human society still faces complex and urgent challenges. Worldwide more than 1 billion people live in a state of destitution. With rise in social exclusion and inequality the problem of extreme poverty is rising. This report will take a look at the extreme poverty and the various goals regarding it. Discussion In 2013 the Board of Governors of World Bank has endorsed two new goals. First is that the World Bank Group will commit its energy into bringing an effective end to the extreme poverty by 2030. This means that that they have to reduce it to no more than 3 percent the fraction of the population of the world who are living on less than $ 1.25 percent per day. The second goal is to ensure that the benefits of prosperity will be shared by promoting income growth of the bottom 40 percent of the people. The World Bank group aim at achieving both the goal in a sustainable manner and hence help secure the long term future of the planet and its resources (Vörösmarty, and et.al. 2010, p. 173). Goal 1 Target 1 of the Millennium Development Goal The World Bank originally defined extreme poverty as individuals who are living on the equivalent of less than $ 1 per day. In 2008 it was then updated to $ 1.25 per day. In 1990 the number of people living in extreme poverty was estimated at 1.2 billion. According to World Bank the percentage of people living in extreme poverty globally will fall to no more than 3 percent by 2030 (United Nations, 2010, p. 351). In 1980s it was common for the nations to use their general economic surveys and national income accounting for identifying a poverty line (Rogers, Jalal and Boyd, 2008, p. 172). But a group of economist at the World Bank in the late 1980s understood that this poverty line clustered around an equivalent of $ 370 per day for a number of poorest nations in the world. Thus the World Bank chose this average as the global poverty line (Nwonwu, 2008, p. 211). Though the individual countries are interested in their own specific poverty line, but World Bank chose to adopt this since the cluster provided a useful media and benchmark tool. But then Martin Revallian, World Bank economist found that those who are effectively earning under $ 1.25 per day was categorised as living under extreme poverty (Oxfam, 2014, p. 11). World Bank has taken a number of steps of reducing poverty. World Bank aimed at ending poverty within a generation and promoting shared prosperity over a sustainable long period of time across generations. Achieving these targets needs promoting social, environmental and fiscal sustainability. They aim at securing the long term future of their planet along with the resources for future generations so that they don’t find themselves in a waste land (World Health Organisation, 2013, p. 141). They have aimed for sustainable social inclusion and have limited the size of economic debt inherited by future generations. At the earth Institute researchers have taken a human needs approach to developing solutions to address the extreme poverty. Researchers at the institute are trying to help fight global poverty by addressing root causes like malnutrition, hunger, water, health care, gender equality, trade barriers, access to education etc. The above approach is according to the Millennium Projects of United Nations which have aimed to cutting the global poverty by half by 2015 (Clarke and Feeny, 2013, p. 312). The above framework led to the development of most comprehensive development project in history named Millennium Villages. This concept is proving to be very useful in fighting poverty at the village in Africa through community –led development and makes it possible for achieving the Millennium Development Goals by 2015 and finally escaping the poverty trap (The World Bank, 2013, p. 15). The World Bank aims at promoting prosperity by ending poverty by including non-monetary dimensions of welfare like health, education, nutrition, access to important infrastructure. It also means participation of all segments of society in social, economic and political spheres. In 2009, at the World Summit on Food Security the global leaders pledged to achieve the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) to reduce the world poverty to no more than 3 percent by 2030. This target is difficult but achievable. This will need fall in poverty level by about one percentage point per year which is similar to the average annual reduction in poverty level since 1980. This implies that there is a need to maintain a growth rate of per capita income in the emerging economies at least as high as that achieved since 1999. But maintaining such a growth rate is difficult as it assumes continuous pattern of strong growth in the emerging economies and successfully managing any world shock to limit its impact on the poor and thus preventing inequality from increasing (The Guardian, 2013, p. 1). Further aiming one percentage point reduction in extreme poverty per annum will be difficult to achieve as the rate declines, since each successive one percentage point represents and larger share of the overall poverty rate. Further one might expect that in the coming years the pace of global poverty will slow down relative to the trend in previous decades (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2013, p. 1). To reach the global target by 2030 the pace of poverty reduction in South Asia and Sub Saharan Africa is important. In Sub Saharan Africa, there were two decades of no decline in poverty which was followed by a decade of fast poverty reduction during the 2000s. The extent of the challenge in such low income countries is the fact that these regions face high rates of current extreme poverty. In 2010 more than one-third of countries in Sub-Saharan Africa had poverty more than 50 percent (Wilkinson and Hulme, 2013, p. 119). Thus reaching the global target of 3 percent by 2030 will need rapid economic growth in such low income countries. To achieve it the rate of poverty reduction must be high and must be sustained over a longer period of time. But the fact is that it is not possible without long –term structural changes in such economies (Wilkinson and Hulme, 2013, p. 163). Some Millennium Development Goal has been met already and more targets are yet to be achieved. It is important to address the challenges for achieving the targets. This has been the most successful global anti-poverty measure in the history. The Poverty rates have already been halved and hence about 700 million individuals live in extreme poverty in 2010 as compared to those living n 1990. The financial and economic crisis has widened the global jobs gap. One in eight individuals still go hungry while going to bed at night despite major progress. Approximately 7 percent of the children, who are under the age of five years, now suffer from malnutrition, overweight and around 25 percent of these children lives in sub-Saharan Africa (United Nations Publications, 2005, p. 241). Such a step has proven that focused global development objectives are helpful in making a profound change. Such an initiative has improved millions of lives of the people by meeting the targets on poverty reduction, improving the survivals of slum inhabitants, increasing admittance to pure drinking water and achieving gender parity in the primary schools (UNDP, 2014, p. 1). According to World Bank new poverty estimates have confirmed that the world have reached the Millennium Development Goal target five years ahead in time. In developing regions the percentage of people living on less than $ 1.25 a day declined to 22 percent in 2010 from 47 percent in 1990. In 2010 around 700 million fewer individuals are living in conditions of extreme poverty. It has been found that extreme poverty rates have fallen in many emerging economies like China which has led the way (Sweetman, 2005, p. 251). In China, the percentage of extreme poverty has dropped to 16 percent in 2005 from 60 percent in 1990. But poverty still remains a widespread phenomenon in Southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa though there has been substantial progress in Southern Asia. Here the rate of poverty fell by an average of one percentage point per year. It has declined to 30 percent in 2010 from 51 percent in 1990. In comparison during the same period the poverty rate in sub-Saharan region fell only by 8 percentage points (United Nations, 2012, p. 15). Inspite of this impressive achievement there are still 1.2 billion individuals who are still living in extreme poverty. For example in sub-Saharan African region almost half of the population are living on less than $ 1.25 per day. As a matter of fact this is the only region in the world where there has been steady growth in the number of people living in extreme poverty. It has risen from 290 million in 1990 to 414 million in 2010 which accounts for more than a third of the people worldwide. The World Bank has projected that by 2015 around 970 million people will be still living in extreme poverty which is classified as low or middle income. Southern Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa will be home to about 40 percent of the developing world population which is living in extreme poverty. All around the world, abject poverty is found in places where there is lack of education and poor health which will deprive people of productive employment, corruption, where environmental resources have been spoiled or depleted, bad and conflict governance with waste public resources and discourage private investment. In terms of progress, since early 1990s countries in Asia have performed the best. There have been a huge reduction and the average proportion of people living in poverty declined significantly. Nearly ten African countries have reduced their poverty level by half. These include countries like Egypt, Ethiopia, and post-conflict countries like Angola. According to World Bank nearly half of the African countries have reduced their poverty rate by at least two percentage points per annum and this have put them back on track to meet the target of Millennium Development Goals. In comparison to it small countries like Zimbabwe and Nigeria the number of population living in extreme poverty has increased. In places like Vietnam, between 1993 and 2006, the proportion of individuals living on less than $ 1.25 per day have decline from 63 percent to 21 percent. This ranks Vietnam third among all the low income countries and firs in East Asia in terms of reduction of poverty. Conclusion The challenge of poverty reduction has been deepened by recent economic and financial crisis since it had slowed the GDP growth rate in many middle and low income countries. World Bank has taken a number of steps of reducing poverty. World Bank aimed at ending poverty within a generation and promoting shared prosperity over a sustainable long period of time across generations. Millennium Development Goal has proven that focused global development objectives are helpful in making a profound change. Such an initiative has improved millions of lives of the people by meeting the targets on poverty reduction, improving the lives of slum dwellers, increasing access to safe drinking water and achieving gender parity in the primary schools. The international community now needs to take steps to continue to fight against poverty at all these various levels. References Clarke, M. and Feeny, S. 2013. Millennium Development Goals Beyond 2015. New York: Routledge. Nwonwu, F. 2008. Millennium Development Goals: Achievements and Prospects of Meeting the Targets in Africa. Pretoria: African Books Collective. Oxfam. 2014. Working For The Few Political capture and economic inequality. Available at: http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/bp-working-for-few-political-capture-economic-inequality-200114-summ-en.pdf. [Accessed on: 17 April. 2014]. Rogers, P.P., Jalal, K.F. and Boyd, J.A. 2008. An Introduction to Sustainable Development. London: Earthscan. Sweetman, C. 2005. Gender and the Millennium Development Goals. London: Oxfam. The Guardian. 2013. 2013 millennium development goal progress index – get the data. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2013/may/29/millennium-development-goal-progress-data. [Accessed on: 17 April. 2014]. The World Bank. 2013. End Extreme Poverty Andpromote Shared Prosperity. Available at: http://www.worldbank.org/content/dam/Worldbank/document/WB-goals2013.pdf. [Accessed on: 17 April. 2014]. UNDP. 2014. The Millennium Development GoalsEight Goals for 2015. Available at: http://www.in.undp.org/content/bangladesh/en/home/mdgoverview/. [Accessed on: 17 April. 2014]. United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. 2013. The Millennium Development Goals Report 2013. Available at: http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/publications/mdgs-report-2013.html. [Accessed on: 17 April. 2014]. United Nations Publications. 2005. The Millennium Development Goals: A Latin American and Caribbean Perspective. Chile: United Nations Publications. United Nations. 2010. The Millennium Development Goals Report 2010. London: United Nations Publications UNIDIR. United Nations. 2012. The Millennium Development Goals Report. Available at: http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/pdf/MDG%20Report%202012.pdf. [Accessed on: 17 April. 2014]. Vörösmarty, C.J. and et.al. 2010. Global threats to human water security and river biodiversity. Available at: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v467/n7315/full/nature09440.html. [Accessed on: 17 April. 2014]. Wilkinson, R. and Hulme, D. 2013. The Millennium Development Goals and Beyond: Global Development after 2015. New York: Routledge. World Health Organisation. 2013. Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Available at: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs290/en/. [Accessed on: 17 April. 2014]. Read More