MDG BriefExcerpts from publications.May 16, 2012

Contents

Press 1

Millennium Development Goals: India makes impressive progress in 10 out of 22 indicators 1

Goals and Targets from the Millennium Declaration 4

GOAL 1: ERADICATE EXTREME POVERTY & HUNGER 4

GOAL 2: ACHIEVE UNIVERSAL PRIMARY EDUCATION 4

GOAL 3: PROMOTE GENDER EQUALITY AND EMPOWER WOMEN 4

GOAL 4: REDUCE CHILD MORTALITY 4

GOAL 5: IMPROVE MATERNAL HEALTH 4

GOAL 6: COMBAT HIV/AIDS, MALARIA AND OTHER DISEASES 4

GOAL 7: ENSURE ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY 5

GOAL 8:DEVELOP A GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP FOR DEVELOPMENT 5

Press

Millennium Development Goals: India makes impressive progress in 10out of 22 indicators

With roughly three years left for India to achieve the MillenniumDevelopment Goals (MDGs), the country has managed to showsignificant progress in 10 of the 22 indicators.1 1 Refer to Appendix A for goals and

targetsWith impressive gains in improving primary education enrollmentrate, promoting gender equality and increasing forest cover, thecountry’s lackluster performance in reducing overall poverty andhealth indicators has dragged down the performance of the overallSouth Asian region.

The millennium development goals are a list of eight internationaldevelopment parameters that all 193 members of the United Na-tions have to achieve by 2015. The progress in the 8 parameters ismeasured by 22 socio-economic indicators.

India, compared to most nations in the Asia Pacific, has madevery slow progress in eradicating poverty over the period of 10 years,according to the Asia - Pacific Regional MDG report 2011-12

2. 2 http://www.unescap.

org/pdd/calendar/

CSN-MDG-NewDelhi-Nov-2011/

MDG-Report2011-12.pdf

MDG brief

With 49.4 % people living on less than $1.25 per day in the country,the metric for poverty used by MDGs, in 1994, the country has able toreduce it to only 41.6% in the ten years to 2005.

The following data is from PovcalNet3 3 developed by the DevelopmentResearch Group of the World Bankhttp://iresearch.worldbank.org/

PovcalNet/index.htm

In the following tables,

Inc/Con: Welfare measured by income or consumption

Headcount: % of population living in households with consumptionor income per person below the poverty line.

Watts’ poverty index: mean across the population of the proportionatepoverty gaps, as measured by the log of the ratio of the povertyline to income, where the mean is formed over the whole popula-tion, counting the non poor as having zero poverty gap.

Gini index: measure of inequality between 0 (everyone has the sameincome) and 100 (richest person has all the income)

MLD index: mean across the population of the log of the overallmean divided by individual income.

Survey Inc/ Mean Pov Head Pov Pov gap Watts Gini MLD Detailyear Con ($) line ($) (%) gap (%) square index index index

2004.5 C 53.49 38 41.64 10.51 3.69 0.1328 33.38 0.1892 weighted1993.5 C 46.68 38 49.40 13.56 5.07 0.174 30.82 0.1604 weighted1987.5 C 44.84 38 53.59 15.81 6.27 0.2063 31.88 0.1701 weighted1983 C 42.76 38 55.51 17.24 7.19 0.2329 31.11 0.1602 weighted1977.5 C 39.17 38 65.89 23.22 10.64 0.3255 35.09 0.2117 weighted

Table 1: India

Survey Inc/ Mean Pov Head Pov Pov gap Watts Gini MLDyear Con ($) line ($) (%) gap (%) square index index index

2009.5 C 54.96 38 34.28 7.53 2.46 0.0914 29.96 0.15482004.5 C 49.93 38 43.83 10.66 3.65 0.1325 30.46 0.15951993.5 C 43.76 38 52.46 14.33 5.36 0.1828 28.59 0.13931987.5 C 42.85 38 55.60 16.27 6.43 0.2112 30.13 0.15481983 C 41.03 38 57.78 18.06 7.57 0.2456 30.06 0.14991977.5 C 37.51 38 69.02 24.52 11.26 0.3453 34.2 0.2077

Table 2: India – ruralThe rate of reduction in poverty is much lower than other southAsian countries like Bangladesh that has brought down proportion ofexteremely poor people from 66.8% in 1992 to 49.6% in 2005. India’spoor population is much higher than Pakistan (22.6%), Sri Lanka (7%)and Turkey (2.7%).

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MDG brief

Survey Inc/ Mean Pov Head Pov Pov gap Watts Gini MLDyear Con ($) line ($) (%) gap (%) square index index index

2009.5 C 73.01 38 28.93 7.39 2.61 0.0906 39.28 0.25652004.5 C 62.43 38 36.16 10.16 3.8 0.1336 37.59 0.23331993.5 C 54.91 38 40.77 11.39 4.24 0.1491 34.34 0.19291987.5 C 50.89 38 47.50 14.43 5.78 0.1916 35.57 0.2091983 C 48.28 38 48.25 14.62 5.99 0.1923 33.33 0.18211977.5 C 45.07 38 54.79 18.61 8.42 0.2554 35.74 0.2132

Table 3: India – urbanThe Asia- Pacific region as a whole has however already reached

the MDG of halving the incidence of poverty. The proportion ofpeople living below $1.25 per day in the region has come down from50% in 1990 to 22% in 2009.

Out of the 22 indicators, India has achieved 7 while is on track toachieve another 3 while it is lagging behind in the rest. The SouthAsian region as a whole also has a similar profile though if oneexcludes India, the region is on track to eradicate extreme poverty by2015.

Health indicators however continue to suffer in all sub regions inAsia - Pacific.

“We are in a race against time with just 3 years left to achieve theMDG. The good news though, is that our analysis shows many ofthese goals can still be reached with a re doubling of efforts,” saidNoeleen Heyzer, United Nations under secretary general.

The greatest progress in the region has been in South East Asiawhich has already achieved 10 out of 22 assessed indicators and is ontrack for another 4. India has the second highest increase in primaryenrollment ratio at 96.9% in 2008, up from 85% in 2000 among allcountries of South West Asia.

The country has lagged behind in bringing infant mortality andmaternal mortality rates down during the 1990-2008 decade signifi-cantly; however it has made progress in bringing down tuberculosisprevalence rate and HIV prevalence rates.

Forest cover in the country has improved to 23% of land coverin 2010, up from 21.5% in 1990. Protected areas have also seen amarginal increase during the 10 year period to 4.82% in 2010, from4.49% in 1990. This is the best performance among other nations inSouth Asia. Carbon dioxide emissions have, however increased in thecountry over the period from 1.48 tons per capita in 2008 to 0.8 tonsper capita in 1990.4 4 http://articles.

economictimes.indiatimes.

com/2012-02-18/news/31074955_1_

mdgs-extreme-poverty-millennium-development-goals

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MDG brief

Goals and Targets from the Millennium Declaration

GOAL 1: ERADICATE EXTREME POVERTY & HUNGER

Target 1.A Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of peoplewhose income is less than $1 a day

Target 1.B Achieve full and productive employment and decent workfor all, including women and young people

Target 1.C Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of peoplewho suffer from hunger

GOAL 2: ACHIEVE UNIVERSAL PRIMARY EDUCATION

Target 2.A Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girlsalike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling

GOAL 3: PROMOTE GENDER EQUALITY AND EMPOWER WOMEN

Target 3.A Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondaryeducation, preferably by 2005, and in all levels of education nolater than 2015

GOAL 4: REDUCE CHILD MORTALITY

Target 4.A Reduce by two thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate

GOAL 5: IMPROVE MATERNAL HEALTH

Target 5.A Reduce by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio

Target 5.B Achieve universal access to reproductive health

GOAL 6: COMBAT HIV/AIDS, MALARIA AND OTHER DISEASES

Target 6.A Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the spread ofHIV/AIDS

Target 6.B Achieve, by 2010, universal access to treatment for HIV/AIDSfor all those who need it

Target 6.C Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the incidence ofmalaria and other major diseases

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MDG brief

GOAL 7: ENSURE ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY

Target 7.A Integrate the principles of sustainable development intocountry policies and programmes and reverse the loss of environ-mental resources

Target 7.B Reduce biodiversity loss, achieving, by 2010, a significantreduction in the rate of loss

Target 7.C Halve, by 2015, the proportion of the population withoutsustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation

Target 7.D By 2020, to have achieved a significant improvement in thelives of at least 100 million slum dwellers

GOAL 8:DEVELOP A GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP FOR DEVELOPMENT

Target 8.A Develop further an open, rule-based, predictable, non-discriminatory trading and financial system

Target 8.B Address the special needs of least developed countries

Target 8.C Address the special needs of landlocked developingcountries and small island developing States

Target 8.D Deal comprehensively with the debt problems of develop-ing countries

Target 8.E In cooperation with pharmaceutical companies, provideaccess to affordable essential drugs in developing countries

Target 8.F In cooperation with the private sector, make availablebenefits of new technologies, especially information and communi-cations

Note: The Millennium Development Goals and targets comefrom the Millennium Declaration, signed by 189 countries, in-cluding 147 heads of state and government, in September 2000

(http://www.un.org/millennium/declaration/ares552e.htm) andfrom further agreement by member states at the 2005 World Summit(Resolution adopted by the General Assembly – A/RES/60/1). Thegoals and targets are interrelated and should be seen as a whole.They represent a partnership between the developed countries andthe developing countries “to create an environment–at the nationaland global levels alike– which is conducive to development and theelimination of poverty.”5 6 5 United Nations. 2008. Report of the

Secretary-General on the Indicators forMonitoring the Millennium Develop-ment Goals. E/CN.3/2008/29. NewYork.

Also, http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/global.shtml6 World Bank (Author). Global Mon-itoring Report : Global MonitoringReport 2011 : Improving the Oddsof Achieving the MDGs. Herndon,VA, USA: World Bank Publications,2011. p xvi. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/britishcouncilonline/Doc?id=

10468648&ppg=18

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