Mid-term reviews of the progress made towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have highlighted the need to measure the progress made towards reaching them in a way that truly represents the empowerment of women and the inclusion of vulnerable groups in society. Certain social groups are wholly or partially excluded from participating in the economic, social and political life of the community in which they live, resulting not only in diminished material and non-material quality of life, but also in tempered life chances, choices and reduced citizenship.
Although countries have been adopting policies to improve social inclusion and gender equality, evidence suggests that progress is still slow. There is thus an urgent need to give greater visibility to this effort. The MDGs could serve as a good medium for this effort. But recent reviews of the MDGs clearly show that they do not explicitly incorporate issues of social integration. Yet the inclusion of social integration into the broader development agenda is critical for sustained social development and poverty reduction. The reviews also indicate that existing MDG targets and indicators may not adequately capture progress on the inclusion of socially vulnerable groups.
The challenges of meeting the targets of the MDGs in Africa are immense as is widely acknowledged. Whilst there has been progress in many African countries on MDG 2 on education, and on gender parity, progress on the other goals has been slow (see annex 1). In addition, the progress reported by many countries does not fully capture social and regional disparities in the incidence of the benefits of actions taken by governments towards achieving the MDGs. Thus the existing MDG framework may not fully reflect the progress being made towards inclusion of the socially excluded and marginalized groups in mainstream development and in addressing inequities in health.
|
