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News
June 09, 2010
UN Millennium Campaign urges decisive
actions from new administration
MEDIA RELEASE FROM THE UN MILLENNIUM
CAMPAIGN
REFER TO: RHEA ALBA, UN MILLENNIUM CAMPAIGN
Email
rhea.alba@undp.org / Mobile +63 917 553
7257
MANILA, Philippines, June 9, 2010 – The
Philippines only has five years left to
achieve the eight Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs) that the government committed
to in the 2000 Millennium Declaration. While
there has been progress in some areas, the
country remains off-track in more than 40
percent of the 21 indicators, the
Asia-Pacific Regional Report for 2009-2010
cited.
The MDGs are time-bound, concrete and
specific goals that 189 world leaders
committed to achieving by 2015 at the United
Nations Summit in September 2000. These
goals are: 1) end extreme poverty and
hunger; 2) achieve universal primary
education; 3) promote gender equality and
empower women; 4) reduce child mortality; 5)
improve maternal health; 6) combat HIV/AIDS,
malaria and other diseases; 7) ensure
environmental sustainability and 8) develop
a global partnership for development.
In the past ten years since the Declaration,
the Philippines had made considerable
progress in some of the Goals, particularly
Goals 4, 6 and 7.
Infant and under-five mortality rates have
been steadily decreasing since 1990,
according to the National Demographic and
Health Survey (NDHS). In 2008, infant
mortality rate was 25 per 1,000 live births,
very nearly closing the gap with the Goal 4
target of reducing infant deaths to 19 by
2015. The report also cited that the
Philippines had consistently managed to
bring the infant-mortality numbers down from
80 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1990 to
34 deaths in 2008.
On Goal 6, Department of Health records
showed a decline in malaria morbidity: from
24 cases per 100,000 population in 2008 to
21 in 2009. Malaria mortality rate has
declined from 0.06 deaths per 100,000
population in 2008 to 0.02 in 2009.
The country is an early achiever on the Goal
7 target of access to safe drinking water,
with 87.9 percent, according to the Family
Income and Expenditure Survey (FIES). It is
close to reaching the 2015 target of 85.9
percent access to sanitary toilet
facilities, with 81.5 percent in 2007.
Despite these achievements, however, faster
pace of gains is urgently needed to meet
some of the other Goals. United Nations data
revealed that 33% of Filipinos still live on
less than USD1 a day while 5.2 million
children of school age are out of school. In
addition, 11 mothers die each day due to
pregnancy-related causes, and the incidence
of HIV among the youth has increased
five-fold from 41 in 2007 to 218 in 2009.
“It is thus crucial for the next
administration to take decisive steps in
implementing existing MDG-supportive
policies and formulating policies where they
are lacking, so the country can get closer
to achieving the MDGs,” said Minar Pimple,
UN Millennium Campaign Regional Director for
Asia and the Pacific.
“This year is particularly crucial because
it is the 10th anniversary of the Millennium
Declaration. World leaders, including
President-apparent Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino
III, will gather in New York in September
for the MDG Summit. They have to come up
with MDG Breakthrough Plans that not only
sustain policies and programs that have
worked for the achievement of the MDGs, but
they also have to address the roadblocks
that have derailed achievements in some
areas. These include rapid population
growth, corruption and bad governance. In
addition, there has to be a strong push for
localization, making sure that the MDGs
serve not just a few, but every Filipino,”
said Pimple.
“Based on the hard facts, the Philippines
did not make enough progress towards the MDG
goals for the past two presidential terms,”
said Leonor Magtolis Briones, lead convenor
of Social Watch Philippines (SWP), which
leads approximately 100 civil society groups
formulating and lobbying for alternative
budget proposals towards increased
allocation for the MDGs through the
Alternative Budget Initiative (ABI)
campaign.
More than allocating budget for MDG-related
policies and programs, accountability should
include ensuring that the allocated budget
gets to their intended recipients, said
Briones. For 2008 and 2009 alone, the ABI
uncovered billions of impounded funds before
a House Committee on Appropriations’ special
hearing. These include funds for health and
agriculture programs in the 2008 budget,
such as P1.8 billion for family health, P400
million for the tuberculosis program, P100
million for purchase of autoclaves, P100
million for the promotion of organic
agriculture and P2 million for training
small-farmers for system of rice
intensification (SRI); and funds in the 2009
General Appropriations Act, including P95
million for Protected Areas and Wildlife
Management and P1 billion for reforestation.
“Billions of pesos of people’s money were
either impounded or realigned and
transferred to overall savings under
Arroyo’s term. This has caused delay and
non-implementation of critical
socio-economic programs, which translated to
millions of Filipinos plunging below the
poverty line with no job, no education, no
healthcare and no food on their tables,”
said Briones. SWP and member-organizations
of the ABI are hopeful that the next
President will prioritize the release of
these funds as part of his anti-corruption
action plan.
“The President-apparent’s stand against
corruption as the main cause of nationwide
poverty gives us hope that we can achieve
the MDGs after all. If he can streamline the
flow of existing funds into MDG-related
projects while the Congress legislates more
budget to support sustainability, we can
definitely fast-track the MDGs,” added
Briones.
“We may have already lost ten years’ worth
of opportunities to work towards the MDGs,
but it’s not too late. With committed
leadership, the right policies and
resources, the Philippines can still achieve
the goals by 2015,” said Pimple. “Now that
the election fever has died down, we see
this as the perfect time to remind the new
President that there is a lot of work to be
done, and the people that we have the right
to demand from the new administration a
renewed commitment to the MDGs, better
policies, and more decisive action.”
.
About the United Nations Millennium
Campaign
The UN Millennium Campaign supports and
inspires people from around the world to
hold their governments to account for the
achievement of the Millennium Development
Goals. For more information on the
Millennium Campaign and the Stand Up, Take
Action Campaign, log on to
www.asiapacific.endpoverty2015.org and
http://ph.one.un.org/standup.
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