2008 MDG Round Table

Concept note

- Sample and Draft -

ASEAN

Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, VietNam

The Millennium Development Goals in South-Eastern Asia

The Millennium Development Goals in South-East Asia: “Reaching those Unreachable”

As the International Community moves towards the mid-term review of the Millennium Declaration, and on the progress reached in its 8 Millennium Development Goals (MDG), it is still urgent to identify the gaps and obstacles that have so far impeded their achievements.

Since the Millennium Declaration in 2000 and the 8 MDGs proclaimed in 2001, several reports have been published directly related to the difficulties in achieving these Millennium Development Goals:

- The Millennium Development Goals: Progress Chart 2005

- The Millennium Development Goals Report 2006

- The Millennium Development Goals Report 2007

Other official documents of importance, such as Special reports of the Secretary-General on MDGs, as well as the last Ministerial Declaration of the 2007 High-Level Segment of the substantive session of the ECOSOC, reaffirm the importance of the MDGs and to achieve them by 2015.

The MDGs consist of eight (8) majors objectives and practical targets which range from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education, within the 2015 timeframe. These MDGs stem directly from the 2000 United Nations Millennium Declaration, and both documents have now become the equivalent of a new universal Charter for human development.

The central challenge in achieving the MDGs, is to ensure that globalisation becomes a positive force for the entire world population, rather than a drag on human development. Southeast Asia must benefit from these MDGs and be included in the world efforts to implement them in the region. The ASEAN region has a population of about 500 million, and a total area of 4.5 million square kilometres. Through ASEAN’s initiatives and efforts in the last 60 years, the region has become an important zone of economic activities, of social progress and cultural development. With the next ASEAN Formal Summit held in November 2007, we will benefit from a clearer view of the progress made on the implementation of MDGs in South-East Asia, in order to address them more efficiently and identify clearly the most urgent regional issues.

The 2008 ASEAN/AIT Round Table on MDGs will help find ways and means to make future work and efforts more effective, in order to achieve the MDGs by 2015, especially on the most neglected issues. New educational and training tools need to be developed, in order to provide academic institutions and trainers with efficient pedagogical materials to adjust and adapt existing curricula to the MDGs needs.

What was done?

●The 2005 World Summit

The implementation of the United Nations Millennium Declaration was reviewed at the September 2005World Summit. The final statement was a strong comittement made by Member-States, in promising to make progess in the implementation of MDGs: “We, Heads of State and Government. . . reaffirm that our common fundamental values, including freedom, equality, solidarity, tolerance, respect for all human rights, respect for nature and shared responsibility, are essential to international relations. . . We reaffirm our commitment to eradicate poverty and promote sustained economic growth, sustainable development and global prosperity for all. . . We strongly reiterate our determination to ensure the timely and full realization of the. . . Millennium Development Goals. We underline the need for urgent action on all sides, including more ambitious national development strategies and efforts backed by increased international support.”

To support the implementation of MDGs, the Millennium Project was commissioned by the United Nations Secretary-General in 2002 to recommend a concrete action plan for the world to reverse the grinding poverty, hunger and pandemics affecting billions of people. The Millennium Project was then asked to continue operating in an advisory capacity through the end of 2006.

In 2005, Secretary-General Kofi Annan reported to the UN General Assembly that “The MDGs can be met by 2015—but only if all involved break with business as usual and dramatically accelerate and scale up action now. In 2005, a “global partnership for development”…needs to be fully implemented...”

● Situation in South-East Asia in 2005/2006

Data on the five-year progress made in the implementation of MDGs in South-Eastern remains mitigated. In 2005 and 2006, reports showed that progress achieved inAsia had led to a decline in global poverty. Actually, by 2002, rates of extreme poverty felt rapidly in much of Asia, where the number of people living on less than $1 a day dropped by nearly a quarter of a billion people. However, the rapid expansion of urban areas in South East Asia was creating cities of unprecedented size and complexity, increasing urban poverty and then creating new challenges in order to provide poverty relief and decent environment for the poor.

In 2005 and 2006, child survival improved markedly in South-East Asia, and child mortality rates declined by more than 3 per cent annually. Moreover, the South-East Asia region showed dramatic gains in the number of assisted maternal deliveries.

Despite this remarkable progress, targets are not expected to be met by 2015, if the prevailing trends persist in several areas. For example, insufficient achievements are reported on Goal 2: “Achieve universal primary education”. Likewise, Goal 3: “Promote gender equality and empower women” was lacking progress in South East Asia, where it was reported as one of the regions where the gender gap was most evident. Goal 7:“Ensure environmental sustainability” was also seriously lagging, in particular because there was a deterioration in environment and the loss of forests.

Finally, in 2005, according to the Progress Report on Goal 8: “Global partnership for development”, reports and statistics emphasized a substantial improvement, but still far short of estimated needs. There was some skepticism because the debt relief and humanitarian components increased as a proportion of overall aid, but did not contribute directly to long-term development needs. In addition currency devaluation of the US dollar may delay the achievement of the $1-a-day goal in terms of its actual value in 2000.

What remains to be done?

● South-East Asia and MDGs

(The Millennium Development Goals: Progress in Asia and the Pacific 2007) [1]

The prospects of Human Development and MDG achievement for the South-East Asia are good, but also extremely varied and greater efforts are needed if the region is to achieve the MDGs in 2015. A cross-practice approach to support Human Development and MDG achievement will ensure holistic multi-sectoral support to address individual targets within a regional context, and maximize its impact. If progress continues, the MDG target will be met. However, success is unequally shared, since the decline in global poverty is mostly due to rapid economic growth in Asia. South-East Asia, in particular, experienced impressive reductions in poverty. Indeed, the poor in Eastern and South-East Asia have made important gains. Furthermore, Women’s participation in paid, non-agricultural employment has continued to increase slowly and South-East Asia is on track to halve the proportion of people without basic sanitation by 2015.

Finally, the situation for the MDGs is of mixed fortune. South-East Asia includes some of the more prosperous countries in the region along with some of the Least Developed Countries. For example, while Thailand is committed to MDG-plus targets, Cambodia is poorly placed to achieve most of the 8 Goals. Likewise, Lao PDR, Indonesia, Myanmar are also lagging behind in meeting the 8 Goals, particularly those related to poverty, health and gender equality. Substantial and immediate investment in health and education, new rural strategies, efficient environmental management, access to scientific progress and new technologies, modernization of public management in countries like Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR and Myanmar, are all urgent priorities, in order to achieve the 8 MDGs.

●Key challenges

Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty & hunger: Widening income inequality is of particular concern in this region, where the share of consumption among the poorest people declined dramatically.

Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women: Progress towards women’s equal representation in National Parliaments have generally been too slow.

Goal 5: Improve maternal health:Maternal mortality levels remain unacceptably high across in the region. And still 518,000 children in South-East Asia die annually before the fifth birthday.

Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria & other diseases: Globally, 4.3 million people were newly infected with the virus in 2006, with South East Asia showing the fastest rates of infection. In South-East Asia, people are most often infected through unprotected sex with sex workers. Over the past two years, HIV outbreaks among men who have sex with men have also spread in Cambodia, Thailand and Viet Nam.

Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability: Almost all countries in Southeast Asia are considered as “regressing” for the indicator on deforestation and suffering from out-of-control urbanization.

Goal 8: Develop a global partnership for development: As development aid falls, despite renewed commitments by donor countries[2], partnerships for development are slow to come with NGOs and the private sectors of developed countries

Which orientations are taken in the area?

●East and South-East Asia MDG Forum in Hanoi, Viet Nam

Participants have called on the Region’s governments to do more to 'reach the unreached', by improving educational and health care services. Participants also called for increased efforts to protect the sub-region’s quickly dwindling forests. The recommendations came at the close of the Forum, on 1-2 March 2007. At this Forum, more than 100 participants from 12 countries identified the most common 'road blocks' to universal primary and secondary education, health care for mothers and children, equal treatment of women, sustainable use of forests, and obtaining the human and financial resources to meet common development goals.

Other points in this Forum’s Plan of Action include recommendations to improve the quality and availability of teachers, especially in rural and remote areas, more access to disadvantaged groups such as minorities, child workers and the disabled; improve accessibility of health care facilities in remote and mountainous areas; change traditional/cultural perceptions of women's role in politics, and train women elected officials at the local level to enter national-level politics; consider economic instruments such as fees or taxes to support the sustainable use of forests and water resources; create new and strengthen existing South/South partnerships in the sub region.

●12th ASEAN Summit in Philippines 9-15 January 2007

The Statement of the ASEAN Leaders at the 12th ASEAN “Summit on a Debt-Equity Proposal for Funding United Nations Millennium Development Goals Projects” is a big step in the implementation of Goal 8, related to the development aid and partnerships:

(§ 3)“Therefore we now call upon the Paris Club[3] of international lenders to receive and consider the proposal of the Philippines at the Asian Inter-Parliamentary Organization for debt-equity arrangements to fund projects in the pursuit of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) of the United Nation’s.

In which manners the MDGs can be implemented in the ASEAN region?

The UN/NGO Section is at the origin of an international initiative promoting the development of pedagogic tools and materials for the teaching and training of the 8 Millennium Development Goals.

In 2005-6, four regional Round Tables were organized in Paris, Algiers, Brazil, and Beijing that evaluated MDG teaching and training in these 4 regions. Little or no training on MDGs was found in any of these 4 regions. As a result, a plan was developed for the creation of Centres of Excellence for teaching and learning the MDGs, in collaboration with international partners and sponsors, local authorities, civil society, universities and the private sector.

The purpose of this 2008 ASEAN/AIT Round Table is to involve ASEAN participants more actively in MDGeducation and training. The possibility of creating a Regional Center of Excellence on MDGs will be discussed at this Roundtable, as a tool and framework within which similar initiatives at the national and local levels can lead to creating Centers of excellence, in all parts of ASEAN.

What are the Objectives of the ASEAN/AIT Round Table?

The objective of this Round Table is to generate substantive, multidisciplinary and cross-sectoral discussions to improve the implementation on MDGs, in order to achieve and meet the 2015 targets, through education and training tools and materials.

The UN/NGO Section believes that MDGs can be enhanced and better understood and achieved, if it becomes part of teaching at all academic levels. This Round Table can create a momentum in order to launch a sensibilization and educational effort in the ASEAN region, to promote MDGs.

Main objectives of the RT will be:

  1. To discuss the best strategies and approach in order to insert MDGs in academic training and teaching in the ASEAN region’s institutions
  2. To involve the ASEAN institutions in the larger network of academia and NGOs promoting and spreading MDG training/teaching materials, through Centres of Excellence on MDGs;
  3. To impart advocacy skills/knowledge/information to selected stakeholders who would in turn become MDG advocates in their own countries/communities;
  4. To face key challenges concerning the implementation of the MDGs in South-East Asia, in particular, the rising of inequalities, the low level of women participation, the issue of environmental sustainability and especially, the question of the partnership for development;
  5. To identify concrete policy options/action points in operationalize the MDGs at the country level within the broad framework of national development strategies and educational institutions;
  6. To enhance partnerships at the country and sub-regional levels across a broad range of stakeholders (between senior governments officials, academic organizations, private sector, media, local authorities, civil society and NGOs, UN Country Teams and other development partners) for effective MDG advocacy and implementation of MDG action plans;
  7. To emphasize and focus on education as a basic investment for a long-term sustainable implementation of the 8 MDGs, as part of a universal Charter for Human Development for all Mankind.
  8. To adopt a resolution for future action and leading to concrete training, teaching and educational measures for the promotion, understanding and action-oriented involvement of academia, civil society and NGOs in the region, in close cooperation with other similar MDG groups operating worldwide, with the UN-NGO-IRENE and with Centres of Excellence dedicated to MDGs throughout the world.

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[1]

[2]The UN Millennium (GAP) task force once month ago was created in order to develop this area.

[3]Paris Club is an informal group of official creditors whose role is to find co-ordinated and sustainable solutions to the payment difficulties experienced by debtor nations. Paris Club creditors agree to rescheduling debts due to them. Rescheduling is a means of providing a country with debt reliefthrough a postponement and, in the case of concessional rescheduling, a reduction in debt service obligations.