Africa And The Millennium Development Goals

This unique work by the Centre for Conflict Resolution (CCR), Cape Town, South Africa, tracks the progress Africa has made in achieving the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) since 2000. The chapters are organized around the larger themes of political economy, structural issues, sustainable goals, and human development goals. Together they provide a unique assessment from experts on the ground of whether the goals were a success and what remains to be done to achieve sustainable economic and human development in Africa.

Millennium development goals (MDGs) and sustainable development goals (SDGs) have significant implications for global development, in particular for African countries. This book seeks to assist Africa’s policy makers and political leaders, MNCs and NGOs, plus its increasingly heterogeneous media landscape, to understand and better respond or negotiate the evolving development environment of the 21st century. In this collection of nuanced essays, the contributors interrogate the relationship between the MDGs and SDGs in key areas of African development to enhance our understanding and knowledge of the evolving nature of development. They address issues of governance, agriculture, south-south cooperation in a context of foreign aid, natural resource governance and sustainable development, export diversification and economic growth as well as emerging topics such as the internet of things or the sharing economy, climate change, conflict and non-traditional security. The varied, yet interlinked foci present a holistic overview of Africa’s development aspirations, and ability to transform the SDGs’ universal aspirations into local realities. This book will be of use to academics and students in Development Studies, Contemporary African Studies, Political Science, Policy Studies and Geography, and should also appeal to policy makers and development practitioners.

In September 2000, world leaders from 189 countries, including 147 Heads of State, gathered at the United Nations General Assembly to consider the challenges of the new millennium. They adopted the Millennium Declaration, which set out a vision for inclusive and sustainable globalization (UN 2000 (A/RES/55/2)). The leaders pledged to work towards ensuring that conditions of extreme poverty are eradicated wherever they existed. To actualise this declaration, the UN established eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to be achieved by 2015. The goals were broken down into 18 concrete targets and 48 indicators to track progresses in implementation. For the past 14 years thereafter, countries in sub-Saharan Africa have been striving to achieve the goals. So far, some have achieved some of the goals, and the results toward the rest of the goals are also by and large positive, though off-target. This book brings together results of studies on progresses and challenges in the implementation of the MDGs in Lesotho, Kenya, Botswana, Madagascar, Tanzania, Ghana, Uganda and Nigeria. The authors focus on selected goals as cases. The book also presents lessons that can inform the post-2015 development agenda.

Transport is an essential service that must contribute to national development objectives in health, education, agriculture and other sectors in guiding sub-Saharan Africa out of poverty. Developing policies aimed at providing safe, reliable and affordable transport infrastructure and services can and will make a substantial and sustainable contribution to eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, improving health care and reducing HIV/AIDS. Although transport is identified as a priority in poverty reduction strategies, it has not generally been adequately addressed. Global responses tend to focus on rural transport infrastructure—principally roads—with little attention given to sub-sectors such as rivers, lakes, and railroads; and important geographical and econological differences are ignored. The needs of the urban poor have been weakly addressed, as have the access and mobility needs of women, the disabled and other disadvantaged groups, while strategies for adapting transport to agricultural production/distribution or social services (e.g. health and education) have not been adequately developed. A systematic approach to the development of sound, comprehensive transport sector programs that provide clear guidance on what is to be done is much needed. This volume—the product of an expert workshop held at Cornell University’s Institute for African Development in May, 2007—provides accounts of an array of African operational spaces in which transport is relevant to the Millennium Development Goals. It addresses many heretofore ignored dimesions of transport—mobility issues of the urban poor, of women and children, and issues of access to employment, education and health services. It provides an alignment of transport with the MDGs in what proves to be fertile ground for research with important messages for policy makers and consequences for policy.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDG) constitute an ambitious agenda to significantly improve the human condition. The goals set clear targets for reducing poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation, and discrimination against women. Realizing the Millennium Development Goals in the years ahead will be a particularly challenging task in sub-Saharan Africa, in light of weak and often faltering macroeconomic performance, vulnerability to negative climatic shocks, fertility rates and population growth that outpace those of other regions, and a devastating combination of poverty, continued civil conflict, and the effects of HIV/AIDS. This book provides empirical estimates of current progress in African countries and reviews the various obstacles standing in the way, the roles and responsibilities of national actors and their partners, and the advocacy, monitoring, and evaluation aspects of MDG implementation. The authors emphasize the need for changes in public policy and for action in both the developed and developing countries.

This volume examines the impact of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on Africa’s development post-2015. It assesses the current state of the MDGs in Africa by outlining the successes, gaps and failures of the state goals, including lessons learned. A unique feature of the book is the exposition on post-MDG’s agenda for Africa’s development. Chapters on poverty, south-south partnership, aid, gender, empowerment, health as well as governance and development explore what feasible alternative lie ahead for Africa beyond the expiry date of the MDGs.

This book reviews the progress, prospects and challenges of meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Africa. Each chapter corresponds with one of the eight goals of the Millennium Declaration. The introduction sets the stage for the discourse contained in the main text while the conclusion forms an opinion from the findings and prescribes the way forward. The goals, in sequence, include: bull; Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger bull; Achieve universal primary education bull; Promote gender equality and empower women bull; Reduce child mortality bull; Improve maternal health bull; Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases bull; Ensure environmental sustainability bull; Develop a global partnership for development. While it is apparent that most North African countries are on track to achieve the above goals by 2015, few countries in sub-Saharan Africa are expected to succeed in this. As well as reviewing progress towards meeting the Millennium Development Goals, the authors also analyse the obstacles and challenges that stand in the way of achieving the goals. These include internal, economic and cultural obstacles as well as external and environmental factors such as reductions in funding, problems in accessing global markets and the implications for Africa of climate change.