What We Have Achieved in The Millennium Development Goals So Far

The millennium development goals were set in 2000 as a promising initiative led by the UN in the new century where all the 192 UN member state countries including Egypt have agreed to achieve these goals by 2015. So what have we achieved from the 8 millennium development goals in Egypt ?? How keen is the Egyptian regime in achieving these goals considering the fact that we are still third world country !!?

The  8 MDGs are :

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
2. Achieve universal primary education
3. Promote gender equality and empower women
4. Reduce child mortality rate
5. Improve maternal health
6. Combat HIV/Aids, Malaria and other diseases
7. Ensure environment stability
8. Develop a global partnership for development.

Here we are in 2010 and if you live in Egypt , what have we achieved so far from the MDGs??

Well according to the human development report issued 2010 :

• The intensity of deprivation is 40.4%

The gap between the poor and rich are exceeding more and more. There were riots over bread from couple of years ago. Egyptians are turning unwillingly to vegans thanks to the escalating prices of meat. Many villages in Egypt have no access to clean water nor to electricity. Shanty towns are increasing not decreasing.

• The illiteracy rate in Egypt  was 33.4% in 2007 “literacy rate was 66.4%

It is much easier to rule ignorant and illiterate people. By the way before the year 2000 we had TV show that directed to illiterate adults  in Egypt and it was very successful in its mission for decades, when its presenter famous teacher Abdel Baadi Kamhawy ¹ passed away , the TV did not bother to search for a new teacher !!

• To be fair I think we are working on achieving goal no.3 , thanks to the difficult economic situations women are working as taxi drivers , bus drivers and even as truck drivers !!

I know that the official Egyptian government’s report will include the Women’s quota in the parliament as another way to achieve goal no.3 yet we can’t consider a real achievement because that quota was only made not to achieve the MDGs but rather the NDP goals !!

• The infant mortality rate or how many toddlers will die before reaching to the age of 5. Well according to the latest numbers we have 23 deaths/1000 live births

It is great indicator without doubt.
The only thing we have achieved significantly worldwide was goal no.5 : Improve maternal health

• Births attended by skilled personnel in 1991 : 37%
• Births attended by skilled personnel in 2008 : 79%

which means more mothers and babies do not die in birth anymore unlike the past. Actually this indicates that there is an improvement in health conditions. I just hope that NDPian will not come and say that this is an achievement of Mubarak because that had to be achieved from a very long time.

• Combating HIV, Malaria and other diseases , well HIV and Malaria are not real dangerous epidemics in Egypt compared to HCV and HBV.

Egypt has the highest prevalence of HCV worldwide according to the WHO.

• Ensure environment sustainability : The regime is supporting and is working on destroying the environment and the examples are enormous to mention like for instance the continuous aggression on the Nile and the air pollution which is perfectly manifested in the “Black cloud” in Cairo.

There are laws to protect the environment yet they are not applied , the regime is not letting them to be applied.We can’t speak about real environmental initiatives in Egypt because we will be harming investing and discouraging foreign direct investments.
Of course the last 8 goal has been achieved from a long time.
If you look carefully to the first 7 goals , you will find that they are interrelated and they should have achieved from long time in Egypt considering the fact that for 30 years Mubarak has been promising us to achieve them. Again I do not look to our increasing population as a burden , Japan has bigger population on bunch of islands and that it did not stop them from become an economic world power after a terrible defeat in WWII , a defeat that is bigger by all measures from all losses we suffered from all our wars in the 20th century.
To achieve the MDG in Egypt I believe you must take a daring step and think out of the box with your own resources not on charity , you must think of the future of the nation , not the future of the regime.
My dear reader if you have to know that President Mubarak had not attended the Millennium summit despite its importance , he sent Amr Moussa to represent him in the UN  !!
Notes
1. famous illiteracy fighter who was honored by the UNESCO

Infographic’s source : Good

Source : Human development report issued by UN

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