Africa Will Not Meet Most MDGs By 2015

A United Nations Report suggests sub-Saharan Africa will not meet most Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by the 2015 target date. The MDGs 2014 Report launched by the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon in New York, said steady progress was made in sub-Saharan Africa, but population growth, conflict and declines in aid, make reaching many MDG targets by 2015 unlikely. It said Net bilateral aid to Africa, where 34 of the 48 least developed countries are located, fell by 5.6 per cent in 2013. The Report said Africa made big gains in Education between 2000 and 2012. It said the adjusted primary net enrolment rate increased from 60 to 78 per cent. It said, compared to 2,000, however, there were 35 per cent more school children to put in school in 2012. It explained that armed conflicts and other emergencies accounted for this deficit in enrolment. �Thirty-three million children of primary school age in sub-Saharan Africa were not in school in 2012, and 56 per cent were girls,� it added. The Report said, girls continue to face high barriers to schooling, despite net primary enrolment for girls rising from 48 to 75 per cent between 1991 and 2012. It said, while sub-Saharan Africa is home to over half of the world�s out- of-school primary school age population, aid for basic education declined by seven per cent between 2010 and 2011. The Report said Africa showed strong results in the fight against Malaria and Tuberculosis, adding that the continent is on its way to halting the spread of and reversing the incidence of Tuberculosis. It said estimated number of new Tuberculosis cases fell from 321 per 100,000 people in 2002, to 255 in 2012. On Malaria, the Report said an estimated three million children under age five, were saved from Malaria between 2,000 and 2012. It said, however, that despite the progress made, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria, accounted for 40 percent of Malaria deaths worldwide. The Report also said women in the region are gaining more influence in Politics. It said the proportion of seats held by women in single or lower houses of National Parliament, increased from 13 per cent in 2000 to 23 per cent in 2014, the second highest among all developing regions. It said women�s access to paid jobs in non-agricultural sectors rose from 23 per cent in 1990, to 33 per cent in 2012 The Report said despite major population growth, the proportion of people with access to improved drinking water source, increased just by 16 per cent between 1990 and 2012. It said water still remains inaccessible to many households. It said high proportion of slum dwellers in sub-Saharan Africa dropped only slightly from 65 per cent in 2,000 to 62 percent in 2012. The Report explained that sub-Saharan Africa is yet to win the fight against poverty. It said the number of people living in extreme poverty rose steadily, from 290 million in 1990, to 414 million in 2010. It said World Bank projects that by 2015, 40 per cent of the estimated 970 million people living on less than 1.25 dollars a day, will be from sub-Saharan Africa. The Report said the proportion of hungry fell from 33 per cent in 1990-1992 to 25 per cent in 2011-2013. However, the number of undernourished children increased from an estimated 27 million in 1990 to 32 million in 2012. It said Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region where the number of children affected by stunting, rose from 44 million in 1990, to 58 million in 2012.