ISLAMABAD – A committee comprising MNAs from all the parliamentary parties is to be formed in the next few days to ensure achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in the country by 2015. In 2000, the leaders of 189 countries, including Pakistan, had signed the Millennium Declaration, agreeing to do everything in their power to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger and also promised to achieve other seven goals of the MDGs by 2015.
The remaining seven MDGs are: universal primary education, promotion of gender equality and women’s empowerment, reduction of child mortality, improvement of maternal health, combating HIV/malaria and other diseases, ensuring environmental sustainability and development of global partnership. Being perturbed over slow pace in achieving the target, Speaker National Assembly Dr Fehmida Mirza has officially asked all the parliamentary leaders to nominate their members for the proposed committee.
The committee will have two members each from the PPP, PML-N and PML-Q while MQM, JUI-F, ANP, FATA and PML-F will nominate one member each, Pakistan Today learnt. PML-N Chief Whip Sheikh Aftab said opposition leader Chaudhry Nisar Khan would soon finalise the two names while Mian Riaz Hussain Pirzada of PML-Q said his party would give names in a day or two. After the devolution of many departments like Education, Health and Social Welfare to the provinces under the 18th Amendment, the burden of meeting the MDGs has shifted to the provinces but a parliamentary oversight by the centre will help the process.
A similar parliamentary committee is working in India since 2008. Pakistan has so far badly failed to meet the set goals, which is reflected in a report prepared by the Planning Commission in 2010. The report says the first goal, ‘Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger’ that targets for Medium Term Development Framework (MTDF 2009-10) have not been met and it does not look likely that it would be achieved.
“High growth, low inflation and job creation are required to help in coming close to achieving the MDG 2015 targets,” it added.
The second goal ‘Achieve Universal Primary Education’ which focuses on three core indicators, a) net primary enrolment ratio b) completion/survival rate from grade 1 to 5 and c) literacy rate is also unlikely to be met. The report calls for ‘sharp upturn’ in economic activity or government spending for education and other sectors. On goal 3 ‘Promote Gender Equality and Women Empowerment’, the report cites women’s increased share in the wage employment in the non-agriculture sector but also points to overall slow progress.
For ‘Reduce Child Mortality’, the report says any improvement will be challenging, as is the case with other social sector interventions, given the state of the economy and fiscal constraints. On ‘Improve Maternal Health’, it warned that the goal would not be met in the immediate future and any success would require Herculean efforts. The recent trend showed that HIV/AIDS spread was increasing, said the report while commenting on the sixth goal.
On goal 7, ‘Ensure Environmental Sustainability’, the Planning Commission said there was still long way to go. The report expresses satisfaction on the 8th and final goal ‘Develop a Global Partnership for Development.’
