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| Millenium Development Goals Should be a Perpetuity in Africa and the Rest of the Third World |
 PRINTABLE VERSION |
That the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals are a noble initiative for the propulsion of economic growth and the raising of living standards in the developing world is indisputable. The real setback comes in the wake of the relaxant mind-set that has suffused the development agenda of most developing nations for years now.
It is quite saddening to note that it has taken the efforts of the UN and the developed world for the Third World leaders to grasp the fact that their populace need to be free from abject poverty and hunger, gender disparities, environmental degradation, child mortalities, HIV/AIDS, malaria and other maladies. In a span of just over half a century since taking on reigns from their colonial fathers, many developing nations’ leaders have plunged their countries into social and economic woes leaving them in shambles and tatters worse than they were during Colonialism.
Even as many from these socially and economically challenged nations sometimes misguidedly albeit reasonably pour vitriol on their former colonizers’ efforts to help them develop, a lot has been left undone by the Third World nations themselves with respect to self-inspired growth. This conundrum is aptly evidenced by the poverty malaise, which the growth prospects of the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) have been ceaselessly marred in. Instead of engaging their colonists in a tirade to the effect that their melees emanate from the colonial, neo-colonial and slave trade pogroms, the developing world should strive to disentangle themselves from their own mess. The jeremiad against the developed world being true in its entirety in as far as resource exploitation and psychosocial degradation is concerned, justifies not the callous acts of corruption, resource mismanagement and abysmal leadership that has been left to fester in many of the economically budding nations.
Many leaders in the embryonic parts of the globe lack legerdemain in handling the thin-skinned policy issues in their countries as witnessed in the case of Robert Mugabe who unceremoniously evicted non-indigenous farmers from Zimbabwe in a 'well intentioned' yet directionless tussle over land with ruinous socio-economic consequences. In their illegal pursuit of extreme power and wealth, such African leaders not only disregard the welfare of their citizens but also condemn their nations to perpetual and downright poverty and end up emerging as pitiful portraitures of what has now been derogatorily labeled by Africa’s misanthropists as “black African barbarity and savagery” at its best in sacrificing their brothers.
The reality that Africa forms the bane of the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) shows that something must have gone terribly wrong somewhere along the development trail if the enormity of resource endowment in the continent is anything to go by. Deplorable leadership and discordant policies have been pointed at as the possible causes of the pitiable economic performance.
These have thus aggravated major social and economic crises such as poverty and HIV/AIDS. To effectively combat these calamities developing countries should elect good leaders to power and formulate home grown policies in line with their development aspirations.
In this respect, the recent resolution by the Angolan government to abolish prescriptive policy measures from the Bretton Woods institutions and come up with their own formulations for which they would later seek International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) concession is commendable. Hopefully, such steps would steer the country and its ilk away from the hopeless poverty and low standards of living, which have been their hallmark for long.
A July 12th, 2005 United Nations account titled, “Hoping and Coping, The Capacity Challenge of HIV/AIDS in Least Developed Countries”, issued by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Office of the High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States (OHRLLS) indicates that the effect of HIV/AIDS infections on the economies of the Least Developing Countries has magnanimously disoriented their growth and development.
With the majority of those infected and affected by these ignominies being women, the food security situation in these states is under threat since women form the cornerstone of food production through agricultural toil. Coupled with the low access to education, health services and development facilities, the plight of Third World women is thus wanting.
Influence peddling and political patronage have also been grave problems more or so with regard to funding of women organizations in these countries. One of the Community Based Organizations (CBOs) I consulted for was once barred from receiving a grant by the local facilitators for allegedly “submitting their proposal late” despite presenting it nearly seven months before the approved date. These amongst many other salient issues have to be decisively addressed by the developing countries themselves if they are to make any significant steps in improving their lot.
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Antony Felix O. Simbowo
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