Millennium Development Goals: Clean water checked off list. Now back to work.
In these economic times, you take whatever good news you can get.
Last week, the World Bank announced that developing countries appear to have already met their goal of. China was the driving force behind this change, as its booming economy put more and more people to work and lifted millions of its citizens out of the ranks of those who earn less than $1.25 a day.
Today, the World Health Organization and the UN Children鈥檚 Fund (UNICEF) announced that the world had also met ahead of schedule the so-called Millennium Development Goal of halving the proportion of the world鈥檚 population without access to safe drinking water. More than between 1990 and 2010.
Ban Ki-moon called this a 鈥済reat achievement鈥� and UNICEF director Anthony Lake said that thousands of children will be saved each day because of the improvements. But he added that there was still much to be done. At least 783 million people 鈥� 11 percent of the world鈥檚 population 鈥� rely on unsafe drinking water, including open ponds where agricultural or industrial runoff taints water quality.
Meeting goals ahead of a deadline is never a bad thing, but declaring victory before the fight is truly over can be unwise. The fact that much of the progress on halving poverty and increasing access to drinking water is due to the actions of one very large nation 鈥� China 鈥� skews the data, and hides the relative lack of progress in much of Africa, where poverty rates, infant mortality rates, and maternal mortality rates remain troublingly high, and where drinking water sources remain unimproved.
And when one considers the enormity of the overall task of the 鈥� of ending poverty and hunger, providing universal education, fostering gender equality, improving children鈥檚 health, improving maternal health, combating HIV and AIDS, creating environmental sustainability, and fostering global partnership 鈥� there is still much work to be done.
聽鈥淭here鈥檚 a good and bad story here,鈥� says Anne Goddard, president and CEO at聽听颈苍 Richmond, Va. 鈥淭he good story is that extreme poverty has halved, and the bad story is that it鈥檚 China that has driven that number forward. In Africa, extreme poverty is still at about 50 percent, but it鈥檚 dropping 鈥� just at a slower pace than in the rest of the world. So you have to look beyond the big number and down to regional differences.鈥�
鈥淭his doesn鈥檛 mean there are no success stories in Africa,鈥� says Ms. Goddard, in a phone interview, 鈥渂ut most of the continent is lagging behind. I have some hope. We are only two-thirds of the way toward 2015. So that gives us time to reflect on what works and what doesn鈥檛 work.鈥�
There鈥檚 a great balance in trying to set goals that are achievable, and in pointing out that goals are still unmet. Infant mortality rates for children under the age of 5 are dropping, but malnutrition is still a problem, and deaths for birthing mothers remain stubbornly high. UN reports and the news reporting about UN goals should strike a balance in encouraging people to keep working, without making the challenge seem unattainable.
鈥淎nd the great thing about goals is that when you set a goal, you inspire people to meet that goal,鈥� she says. 鈥淲hen I think that within my working life, we might have halved poverty, halved infant mortality, halved maternal mortality rates, that gives me inspiration.鈥�
