MDG: Mind the Development Gap, Asia Pacific told

Citizens of the Asia Pacific countries will hold their governments accountable for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Sanctions for non-achievement will come not from the United Nations, but from the Asia Pacific people themselves.

Erna Witoelar, UN Special Ambassador for MDGs in the Asia Pacific, made this remark at a regional meeting to review MDGs in the Asia Pacific, held in Manila, Philippines, on 7 September 2005.

The meeting, hosted by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) at its headquarters, was attended by over 200 senior representatives from governments, civil society, media and UN agencies from across the Asia Pacific. It was jointly organized by the ADB along with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP).

In her opening remarks Dr Witoelar added: “Some people say that 2005 is a ‘make or break’ year. Despite large challenges and much hard work ahead, I’m still optimistic that together we can make it. I’m utterly convinced that neither anyone nor any country can break it at this moment of time, as the commitments have been removed from the hands of diplomats negotiating in New York to the hands of people all over the world.”

The meeting, held on the eve of the UN General Assembly’s special session on the MDGs in New York in mid September, provided an opportunity for the world’s largest and most diverse region to take stock of the past five years since MDGs were formulated.

A specially commissioned video film produced by TVE Asia Pacific served as a curtain raiser for the meeting.

Click here for separate news story on the film.

At the meeting, the co-organizations released a new report reviewing on Asia Pacific's progress in pursuing MDGs – the time-bound, measurable goals for socio-economic advancement that were adopted by heads of state meeting at the UN Millennium Summit in 2000.

The report, titled A Future Within Reach: Reshaping institutions in a region of disparities to meet the Millennium Development Goals in Asia and the Pacific, uses the latest data to track the movement of each country or territory in the region for each of the eight MDGs and assesses whether the goal will be met by 2015.

“This region has made rapid progress towards many of the MDGs. But not all the developing countries in Asia and the Pacific are making sufficient progress; indeed none are currently on track to meet all the goals by 2015,” the report noted.

Although the Asia Pacific – home to nearly two thirds of humanity – has taken major strides in removing income poverty, its progress on the many ‘non-income’ MDGs has been lackluster. The region’s key challenges are those related to the health of mothers, rural water supply, preventing deaths of infants and children under five and malnutrition.

Click here to read a summary of report’s findings

The MDGs have already helped many countries in the region in galvanizing their development efforts. The report highlights the most important purpose of the MDGs – to focus attention on gaps that remain in MDG achievement.

Using authoritative national data and based on rigorous analysis, the report has assessed over 50 countries in the region on their accomplishments under each MDG, and assigned a ranking in one of four categories: early achiever; on track; off-track – slow; and off-track – regressing.

On a cumulative basis, South Asia was found to be the poorest performing sub-region: one in which a majority of countries (6 out of 10) are off track for more than one third of the MDG indicators.

The report argued that many countries should be able to achieve many of the goals if they invest sufficient resources and make appropriate institutional changes – in particular reforming the way they deliver public services to reach their poorest and most marginalized citizens.

Asian developing countries will need to invest more resources to win this battle, according to the report. But financial resources alone will not be sufficient. The report argues that countries need to strengthen national and local institutions in many areas to support efforts to achieve the goals.

“Money is important, but money alone is not enough – we need to get our act together,” said Hafiz Pasha, UNDP Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific. “Appropriate institutions must be in place to ensure the MDGs are achieved; however, institutional bottlenecks exist in many countries, particularly in terms of costs, laws and regulations. These create significant barriers to providing access to the poor for services such as education, health, and water supply and sanitation.”

Mr. Pasha noted that good governance was emerging as the single most important factor – more than half of UNDP’s work in the Asia Pacific now addresses governance related concerns.

While most institutional changes to promote the MDGs will need to take place at the national level, the report highlights opportunities, particularly in the Asia Pacific context, for concerted international action on the pursuit of “international public goods” such as open trading systems and clean air.

“To achieve the MDGs, the key challenge is to tackle the region's growing disparities by extending the benefits of the region's economic success and prosperity to its 680 million poor. This is the real battle we will have to fight in Asia-Pacific,” said Kim Hak-Su, Executive Secretary of UNESCAP – the UN Secretariat’s Asia Pacific arm.

The report has identified the potential for successful regional cooperation in areas including resource mobilization, monetary cooperation, regularizing labor migration, improving food security, tackling HIV/AIDS and other diseases, supporting green growth, improving governance, and strengthening interaction among regional institutions.

“Given Asia's growing prosperity, there is considerable scope for regional cooperation in many critical areas. China, India and others are already spending significant amounts on assistance to less developed Asian economies, and there are major opportunities to jointly tackle common threats,” said Geert van der Linden, ADB Vice President for Knowledge Management and Sustainable Development.

The second half of the meeting saw three parallel roundtable discussions devoted to identifying and recommending the ways forward for three key aspects: service delivery; regional cooperation; and MDG advocacy.

TVE Asia Pacific Director Nalaka Gunawardene, one of the invitees to the meeting, was associated with the roundtable on MDG advocacy. He suggested several ways in which the region’s mass media can be engaged in the promotion of MDGs.

“There is not only a development gap, but also a communication gap when it comes to the Asia Pacific’s pursuit of MDGs,” he told the meeting. “As long as UN agencies and development activists speak in jargon-ridden, technical terms, the MDGs will not attract popular interest.”