By Cheryl Hendricks -- Dr Cheryl Hendricks is the head of the Southern Africa Human Security Programme at the Institute for Security Studies, Tshwane (Pretoria), South Africa

The United Nations’ Millennium Development Campaign is built around the worldwide achievement of eight goals and 18 targets by 2015, spanning the areas of poverty reduction, health, education, gender equity, environmental sustainability and global partnerships.

African countries have committed themselves to achieving these Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). But this will not be the first time. African countries have also in the past acceded to several other international instruments designed to achieve the same outcomes.

These include the International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; the Copenhagen Declaration; the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women; the Beijing Platform for Action; and the Dakar Framework for Action.

However, little domestication of these instruments materialized.

The Millennium Development Campaign is said to be different to these other policy initiatives because of three factors: its global advocacy; the explicit incorporation of the MDGs into national poverty reduction strategies, and the regular monitoring thereof.

Moreover, the New African Partnership for Development (NEPAD), billed as a ‘‘homegrown’’ African development framework, has also incorporated the MDGs. Despite this, the early prognosis is that sub-Saharan Africa will in all probability not meet the MDG targets.

The results emanating so far from Southern Africa can shed some light on why this may be the case.

Some Southern African countries, as per the current trend, will meet most of the set targets, for example, Botswana and Mauritius. Some will meet a fair number of them, for example, South Africa. Those that will meet very few are, for example, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, and Tanzania.

MDG targets where countries are faring better are those to do with education and women’s representation. Southern African countries have a comparatively high primary school enrolment rate of between 70 and 95 percent. Most countries have either been able to maintain primary school enrolment rates or have increased them, bar South Africa and Zimbabwe.

World Bank indicators show that primary school enrolment rates for South Africa decreased from 92 percent in 1998 to 89 percent in 2004. South Africa has now introduced a ‘‘no school fees’’ system for schools in the poorest communities, which should assist in rectifying the current trend.

Southern Africans, through the Southern African Development Community (SADC), have also vigorously campaigned for gender equity and for a 30 percent representation of women in parliament. Most countries are still way below the 30 percent mark, but there has been substantial improvement in this regard.

For example, Namibia has increased gender representation in parliament from 7 percent in 1990 to 26 percent in 2004. Similarly, South Africa has moved from 3 percent in 1990 to 30 percent in 2004. Currently 21 percent of Tanzania’s parliament consists of women.

There have been slight reversals in this trend in Botswana, Madagascar and Malawi.

It is in the spheres of poverty reduction and health that the majority of countries in the region fare dismally. These two sectors constitute four of the eight MDGs.

The targets for MDG 1 on poverty reduction are to halve both the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day and those who suffer from hunger during the period 1990 to 2015.

Progress is extremely difficult to measure, as there is a glaring lack of data in all countries for most of this MDG’s indicators. Where data is available it indicates that the poverty gap is increasing.

Regarding the state of health, the high prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the region has taken its toll, most notably in the alarming increase of the incidence of tuberculosis.

For example, Botswana shows an increase from 236 cases per 100,000 people in 1990 to 670 per 100,000 people in 2004. There is a doubling or tripling of figures in all countries except Mauritius.

Infant and children under five mortality rates have also increased, while maternal mortality ratios remain high. These rates can be explained by a lack of access to clean water and sanitation, relatively low immunization rates as well as low rates of births attended by skilled health professionals—areas mostly covered in the MDGs.

Poverty can only be a partial explanation for the lack of provision of services. The skewed distribution of existing resources accounts for this scenario. The provision of basic services is a fundamentally political issue. It is here where the Millennium Development Campaign as a whole misses the mark.

The campaign reduces the quest for poverty eradication to a technical exercise in which governments are expected to meet a limited set of criteria for which development assistance will be increased. Any step on the way to alleviate poverty can be deemed good.

However, challenging poverty and creating human security requires a fundamental altering of power and structural relations at both the national and the global level. On this the MDGs are silent.

In the long term the development of Southern Africa requires fundamental shifts in the international trade and aid regimes, and in governance models. Southern African countries remain exporters of primary goods for which they have limited market access globally and no control over price setting.

They remain heavily dependent on largely unpredictable aid. Developed countries have also not delivered on their official development aid commitments.

Compounding the situation are the induced shifts of responsibility for service delivery from governments to fragile markets. This has led to deterioration in the living conditions of many.

Privatizing basic services and extracting user fees may increase the possibility for access, but in reality reduces the actual ability of poor people to utilize these services.

Southern Africa can meet the MDG targets. Southern Africa has the capacity to deliver on these demands. Will they meet the MDGs? Given the current trajectory many probably will not.

The MDGs are unlikely to be achieved without the citizens of these countries actively challenging government policies, practices and budgetary allocations. At present, few are even aware of the campaign.

Striving to actualise development, without it being foisted upon governments as yet another deliverable in the good governance agenda, is the responsibility of any government ruling on behalf of its citizens. But the sad reality is that this has not been the case—hence the MDG campaign.