Monday, July 26, 2004
To Fight Poverty, EA Needs Supportive Policies
By WARREN NYAMUGASIRA
Two years ago, in Tanzania, almost half of the districts recorded less than 50 per cent net enrolment rates of children of schoolgoing age.
Repetition was high, retention poor, the pass rate for the primary leaving exam stood at less than 20 per cent and transition to secondary education was a mere 14 per cent.
In Uganda, where economic growth indicators have been showing a positive trend over the past decade, the same has not been true for infant mortality and maternal health.
In September 2000, the Millennium Summit in New York formally agreed to the Millennium Declaration, which set a global agenda for addressing peace, security and development.
Eight goals were set for eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education (UPE), promoting gender equity and empowering women.
Others were reducing child mortality, improving maternal health, combating HIV/Aids, and ensuring environmental sustainability.
At the financing for development meeting held in Monterrey, resources needed were put at $100 billion per year, the cost of buying a few sophisticated weapons.
MDGs represents a departure from past approaches to addressing poverty. They are a commitment by both rich and poor countries that focus on a core set of inter-related goals and targets, thus providing an opportunity to mobilise partners into a mode of action to support well-defined goals with a specified period of time. For most goals that time-frame is 2015, 10 years from next year. This means that time is running out fast.
In 2005, it will be five years since the world's leaders signed on to the MDGs. The same leaders will meet to take stock of the progress and challenges encountered so far. In preparation for that meeting, the UN Secretary General has launched the Millennium Campaign to remind world leaders of their commitment. Furthermore, British Prime Minister Tony Blair has also instituted the Blair Commission for Africa, on which sits one of our own presidents � Benjamin Mkapa of Tanzania.
In 2005-6, elections will be held in both Uganda and Tanzania and this presents a political opportunity for voters to ask for accountability and commitments on MDG from those seeking their votes.
In late June and early July 2004, civil society organisations in Tanzania, Uganda and Ethiopia held national consultations sponsored by the Millennium Campaign Office, UN resident missions and campaign supporters such as Action Aid, to launch national campaigns. Kenya had already launched its own campaign and Zanzibar will hold one next month.
Despite Tanzania's poor showing in 2001 in education and health and Uganda's stagnating statistics in child mortality and maternal health, the campaign can take comfort in the fact that Uganda has already met the MDG to halt and reverse the spread of HIV/Aids by 2015. Also, it is well on target to meet the universal primary education goal, access to safe water and halving the proportion of people living below the poverty line. Tanzania has also made significant progress in education since launching its five-year Primary Education Development Plan.
However, looking at the progress reports of both Uganda and Tanzania, there is something Tanzania and other countries in a similar situation need to do: the state of the policy environment and the capacity of public officers to incorporate statistical analysis into policy planning and resource allocation mechanisms need to be improved drastically. While in Uganda, the supportive environment for all MDGs is either strong or fair, in Tanzania it is mostly weak, although it is said to be improving. A totally supportive policy environment is a necessary prerequisite to the attainment of MDGs.
The positive Ugandan record on HIV/Aids and UPE is as a result of good policies and strong, aggressive, sustained mobilisation of the population by both the government and civil society organisations. In the case of UPE, it is a result of political will and strong political leadership. The campaign will argue that Tanzania can increase net primary school enrolment by implementing fully its primary education development plan, or better by adopting the winning formula of UPE, which increased enrolment in Uganda by more than 100 per cent in a matter of a few years. The policy resulted in a million Kenyan children going to school almost instantly when the new government announced the UPE policy.
The campaign will aim at reminding our governments of their commitments expressed in MDGs. The campaign will also aim to create and sustain a high degree of awareness of MDGs by the citizens, so that they can demand for more and better services from service providers and hold governments, both central and local, more accountable.
Warren Nyamugasira is co-ordinator of the Millennium Campaign, East Africa region
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