3 Million Reasons to Act for Africa by Kevin Watkins, UN Human Development Report 9:46am 9th Jun, 2005   June 8, 2005    "3 Million Reasons to Act for Africa", by Kevin Watkins. (International Herald Tribune)    Forget the rock stars and the news media feeding-frenzy. When finance ministers of the Group of Eight industrial countries meet in London this weekend they will be dealing with matters of life and death, especially for the children of sub-Saharan Africa.    The finance ministers' gathering is the last staging post en route to the full G-8 summit next month. After all the pledges to do something about Africa's poverty, this is a chance for rich countries to show that their promises are worth something.    Last year, the G-8 promised bold action to get Africa back on track for achieving the Millennium Development Goals - a compact to reduce extreme poverty and other forms of deprivation by 2015. These goals include cutting child deaths by two-thirds. Breaking the promise will cost lives.    Currently, poverty-related diseases claim the lives of 500 African children each hour - and the numbers are going up. The United Nations Development Program has just completed a country-by-country assessment of progress in reducing child mortality in sub-Saharan Africa. The results are not for the faint-hearted.    If current trends continue over the next decade, the region will miss the millennium goals by an epic margin. On our estimates, there will be three million more child deaths in 2015 than there would be if the millennium target were met. By 2015 sub-Saharan Africa will account for two in every three child deaths in the world.    These trends are not destiny. It is difficult to think of any area in which so much could be done to improve human welfare for so little. Consider malaria, which claims the life of one child in Africa every minute. More than three-quarters of these deaths could be averted through a simple net treated with insecticide, costing $3-$5, or simple medicines.    Of course, getting sub-Saharan Africa back on track will take more than initiatives to tackle malaria, AIDS and other major killers. The underlying problem is endemic poverty. Poor households face a double burden: more vulnerable to disease because of malnutrition and inadequate access to clean water, they are also least able to afford treatment and least served by public health systems.    African governments have primary responsibility for developing national poverty reduction plans. But even the best national policies will fail unless Africa can close the chronic financing gaps that restrict opportunities for development.    So, what should finance ministers undertake to do this week? They could start by agreeing on the parameters of a new aid deal. The European Union has provided some leadership, pledging last month to double aid to 0.51 percent of gross national income by 2010 as a stepping stone to reaching the long-standing UN target of 0.70 percent. But at least two European G-8 members, Germany and Italy, are so far short that it will take an extraordinary effort for them to deliver on the new commitment. Both countries could allay fears by announcing concrete budget plans for achieving the target.    The United States, for its part, has increased aid by $8 billion since 2000. Yet the world's largest economy still spends only 0.16 percent of national income on official aid. Indeed, three G-8 countries - Japan, Italy and the United States - are among the nations who give the least aid in proportion to national income.    If the G-8 summit produced a commitment backed by budget plans to reach a 0.51 percent target for aid by 2010, it would help provide the finance that Africa needs to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. National plans could be backed with hard cash on a predictable basis. Improving aid practices would also help. Too much aid is still tied to overpriced goods and services provided by donors - a practice that diminishes value for money.    The G-8 summit could also free sub-Saharan Africa, for once and for all, from the shackles of unsustainable debt. All G-8 members agree that more needs to be done on debt. Unfortunately, that is where the consensus ends. There are disagreements over how to pay for World Bank and IMF debt reduction, over whether debt relief should come from existing aid budgets or new resources, and over how much debt relief should be provided. After almost two years of inertia, it is time for the G-8 to agree to a 100 percent debt cancellation.    The world's rich countries have a chance to put in place policies that could prevent three million additional child deaths. Africa's children do not have a voice at G-8 summits. But those avoidable deaths present three million reasons for the rich world to act now, before it is too late.    (Kevin Watkins is the director of the UN Human Development Report Office).    8th June, 2005    "Three million African children may die from failure to meet UN goals", by Larry Elliott. (The Guardian)    The UN called for urgent action today to avert "disaster" in Africa as it outlined the human cost of a business-as-usual approach to development in the world's poorest continent.    Amid signs that the countries of sub-Saharan Africa would miss the 2015 goals for poverty reduction, child mortality and education by a wide margin, the UN's human development office called for concrete steps to end the debt crisis, open up western markets and provide more and better aid.    Data collected for the UN's human development report due out in September to coincide with a special summit in New York showed that progress made in other parts of the world was not being replicated in Africa. By 2015, the poorest countries in the continent would account for a rising share of those living in extreme poverty, of those deprived of a primary school education and of those dying before the age of five.    In terms of child mortality, the UN said 5 million children under five would be dying in 2015, more than at present. If the millennium development goal [MDG] of cutting infant mortality by 2015 were met, the number of child deaths would be cut to 2 million, while the cumulative number of additional child deaths over the next decade resulting from the failure to hit the target would be 29 million.    "These preliminary figures are based on trends - and trends can be changed through good national policies and more effective cooperation. But the numbers speak for themselves: business as usual will carry a high price in terms of lost lives and lost human potential for Africa," said Kevin Watkins, director of the UN human development report office.    The UN said the trends in child mortality raised particularly grave concerns. "Currently 4.8 million children in sub-Saharan Africa die before the age of five every year - that is nine deaths every minute. With one fifth of the world's births, sub-Saharan Africa currently accounts for 45% of child deaths."    Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region in the world where the number of child deaths is rising, the UN added, noting that on current trends it would not meet the MDG for infant mortality until 2115 - a century late. "If current trends continue, there will be 5.1 million deaths in 2015, with Africa's share rising to 57% of the total. Of 45 countries in the region, 10 countries - including Zambia, Kenya and Zimbabwe - have gone backward since 1990. Another 19 countries are progressing so slowly that the MDG target on child mortality will be missed by more than 35 years.    Sub-Saharan Africa currently accounts for 43 million of the 115 million children out of school, or just over one third of the total. That share is rising over time, the UN said. "While the region is making progress towards the MDG, that progress is too slow to achieve the target of universal primary education by 2015."
	Next (more recent) news item
	Next (older) news item