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Manila, Mar 1, 2007 AEST (ABN Newswire) - While the Asia and Pacific region as a whole is on course to achieve a large majority of the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets by 2015, none of the region's developing countries is individually on track to meet all the MDGs.
And according to present trends, many are likely to miss vital targets, including those for infant mortality, HIV prevalence, and access to water and sanitation in urban areas. Even more worrying, some countries are at risk of failing to reach even two thirds of the targets.
However, there has been progress on some of the MDGs, with the region on target to halve poverty and hunger, achieve universal primary education, and eliminate gender disparities at all levels of education.
The eight MDGs - which range from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education, all by the target date of 2015 - form a blueprint agreed to by all the world's countries and all of the world's leading development institutions.
Asia is, of course, a vast and diverse region that includes five of the world's seven most populous countries - China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan and Bangladesh. By sheer weight of numbers - these five alone account for more than two thirds of all the world's people living on less than a dollar a day. They are also home to wide disparities in poverty and social indicators.
Other countries in the region, such as Afghanistan, Cambodia, Timor-Leste and parts of Central Asia have only recently started to recover from decades of war and civil strife. Their progress toward achieving the MDGs and poverty reduction is as weak, if no worse, than many sub-Saharan countries.
At the 2005 World Summit, leaders of 191 member states of the United Nations resolved to adopt, by 2006, and carry out comprehensive national development strategies that aim to achieve the MDGs by 2015. According to a survey in 2005, only 15% of the countries of Asia and the Pacific had prepared such national strategies.
These issues were examined in a regional progress report issued in October 2006 under a partnership between UNESCAP, UNDP and ADB to analyze trends in MDG achievement and explore policy options.
As part of this tripartite partnership, a series of regional forums is being organized this week to provide a platform for the sharing of information on MDG progress, provide the knowledge and skills to participants, and enhance partnerships among key stakeholders.
The outcomes of the forums will feed into the preparation of a Regional Road Map on MDGs and a Regional MDG Report due to be published in 2008.
The first such forum - focusing on South Asia - was held in Nepal last October. This week (1-2 March) sees the second in the series covering East and Southeast Asia to be staged in Ha Noi, Viet Nam. Attending will be policymakers and senior officials from national and local authorities, private sector representatives, civil society players, academics, and the media.
"We hope the forums will act as an impetus for countries to sharpen their national commitment to translate national development strategies into concrete actions," says Shiladitya Chatterjee, Head of ADB's Poverty Unit. "Mobilization of local authorities and civil society could potentially yield significant benefits in accelerating progress towards achieving the MDGs."
The subregional forums will support UN Country Teams; efforts in generating national and local actions to attain the MDGs and will build stronger partnerships among key stakeholders in the MDG process.
Two more workshops are planned for later in the year - one in Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic, 25-26 April, and a meeting covering the Pacific around May or June.
