OneWorld.net (U.S.)

This coming week, the UN Millennium Campaign in India will launch Mid-Term Status Reports on assessing progress towards the Millennium Development Goals in ten states: Bihar, Chattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.

The launch will mark the mid-point to the global deadline for meeting the MDG targets on July 7, 2007, and will be coordinated by the Wada Na Todo Abhiyan (WNTA) – a national campaign that lobbies to hold the government accountable to its promise to end poverty, social exclusion and discrimination.

The objective once more is to remind the government of the gaps to be filled towards fulfilling commitments on meeting and going beyond the MDGs. It also will identify at this stage the key areas where the government and other agencies need to intensify efforts for social change.

MDG targets have been incorporated into the national Tenth Five-Year Plan in the guise of the National Development Goals as also as development commitments of the current United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government as highlighted in its National Common Minimum Programme. In 2004, the UPA adopted the programme, which consists of six principles of governance: Education, Health, Rural Employment, Women, Urban Poor and Housing. Indian economy may have experienced an eight percent growth rate in the last four years. Yet it is estimated that two-thirds of its 1.1 billion inhabitants live off less than $2 a day. A series of evaluations from varied sources continue to challenge the government’s claims regarding progress towards the achievement of these goals.

1. The health sector continues to pose a major concern. A 2005 Citizen’s Report on the MDGs pointed out that India had failed to make any significant improvement towards health sector targets under the MDGs (in fact the relevant statistics were held comparable with India’s position in the 1990s). It also noted the failure of successive governments to provide for universal public health care and adequate infrastructure, along with distorted investment priorities vis-à-vis the sector and selective programmatic focus.

2. In the area of education, the goal of providing quality education for all appears to have remained elusive as well. Restrictions on education budgets due to a number of constraints have resulted in the need to rely on alternatives, as well as the trend towards the privatisation of education impact the accessibility and create disparity in terms of the quality of education and engender discriminatory practices.

3. With reference to the task of poverty alleviation, one of the major contentions has been that official estimates do not capture the ground realities of the masses living in poverty. While official statistics indicate a decline in the percentage of the population living below the poverty line (BPL) (to 27% in 1999-2000), the representation is contradicted by the numbers of frequent starvation deaths, farmer suicides, and agricultural labour migration.

4. Access to safe drinking water and sanitation facilities for all too remain a distant dream for now.

Last month, on May 24, the WNTA Campaign presented a Public Report Card called “Promises Are Not Enough!” Over 500 civil society organizations rated the Indian government’s performance as poor and gave it only 30% marks as it failed to deliver on promises. Only 2.9% instead of 6% of the national income goes to education; and a mere 1.4% instead of 3% is shared out to public health. In rural employment, an average of 39 days of work has been generated, instead of the promised 100 days.

These observations by civil society agencies are but illustrative of the task that lies ahead. Such findings and more are referenced against ground realities and reiterated on different platforms. They underline the need to regroup and reapply towards the achievement of the MDGs within a time-bound framework. The mid-point alarm in India and South Asia, and globally is yet another call to action.