‘Malawi can reverse status of off-track MDGs’
Minister of Economic Planning and Development Atupele Muluzi has said Malawi can still meet the four UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which the country is currently rated unlikely to achieve by 2015.
The latest 2012 Malawi MDGs progress report shows that there are now four MDGs which the country would not achieve by 2015 unlike last year when only three goals were said to be off-track.
The four are hunger and poverty reduction; universal primary education; promotion of gender equality and women empowerment; and improvement of maternal health.
Speaking in an interview on Friday, Atupele said although the remaining time to 2015 deadline on the MDGs is short, Malawi can still reverse the trend on the off-track MDGs if extra efforts are made.
This year’s MDGs assessment is in sharp contrast to declarations during the late president Bingu wa Mutharika administration when it was announced that poverty levels in the country had reduced from 53.9 percent in 2000 to 39 percent in 2011.
It says actual progress on poverty eradication has been slower than expected as the poverty head count has marginally decreased from 53.9 percent in 2000 to 50.7 percent in 2012.
Atupele said government will do further analysis on the data and actual poverty situation on the ground because of the disparity in the figures.
“The question that we are asking is why the disparity. That’s the question that our cooperating partners are also asking, that what does that mean? At the moment, we are trying to answer that question,†said Atupele,
The four MDGs which Malawi is likely to achieve by 2015 are reduction of child mortality; combating HIV and Aids, malaria and other diseases; ensuring environmental sustainability and developing global partnerships for development.
