Challenges of Achieving Millennium Development Goals in Africa by 2015: Some Reflections
| Date | 01 May 2012 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1758-5899.2011.00166.x |
| Author | John O. Kakonge |
| Published date | 01 May 2012 |
Challenges of Achieving Millennium
Development Goals in Africa by
2015: Some Reflections
John O. Kakonge
Dr John O. Kakonge is the former Senior Deputy Director, UNDP Special Unit for
South-South Cooperation
Sub-Saharan Africa is characterized by both challenges
and opportunities and, clearly, African governments still
have trouble in devising effective means for achieving the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This short review
focuses on issues that I experienced first-hand during my
years in Africa with UNDP and which affect the ability of
countries to achieve their MDGs. Some of these chal-
lenges are either overlooked or marginalized but they
nonetheless remain critical.
Coordination
Development is the responsibility of an array of national
players, with the government acting as coordinator.
Today, I know of many projects related to the realization
of the MDGs that are ill-coordinated, and hence their
impact is greatly diminished. To effectively oversee and
manage progress towards realizing the MDGs, I consider
that all the activities involved in policy making and in
monitoring should either be coordinated by a central
government ministry, charged with national planning, or
by a specifically dedicated section in the prime minister
or president’s office.
Strengthening the capacity of government
institutions
Sub-Saharan Africa suffers a high rate of ‘brain drain’ in
the critical sectors of health, agriculture and education,
with a tremendously negative impact on both national
development and the achievement of the MDGs. As a
consequence, countries such as Gambia, Botswana and
others have come to rely on a sizeable number of skilled
expatriates, such as in the health care sector. The short-
age of qualified local doctors and nurses is due, among
other reasons, to a lack of training opportunities for
locals and the low salaries and inadequate medical facili-
ties they are offered once qualified. I think that African
governments will only solve the problem by offering
incentives to retain their qualified staff and those who
agree to work in rural areas must be given added
resources, both financial and human, to make their con-
ditions congenial.
Research and development
Africa will not make progress in achieving the MDGs
without the support of research and development (R&D)
findings. Various studies, however, show such activity in
Africa has been marginalized over the last 10 years, for
the most part because of reduced donor assistance.
Analysis demonstrates that the MDGs can be achieved
by increasing the knowledge base in sectors such as
agriculture, health and education. This agrees with the
conclusion of the MDG Summit in September 2010, which
confirmed the need to strengthen national innovation
and R&D capacity. However, I know that many African
governments feel that research is not important because
so many studies were not followed up nor their recom-
mendations implemented. I cannot overemphasize how
much African countries need to become strong support-
ers of R&D that will in fact help them respond to their
specific needs.
Addressing disparities
Currently, most African countries have largepopulations of
poor people in urban areas and sharp inequalities between
the urban and the rural areas that themselves contain wide
socioeconomic variation. African governments need to
take the local issues related to the attainment of the MDGs
more seriously and ensure that they are included in
national development efforts. Local development brings
the MDGs to the level of the people and engages citizens
and local authorities in adapting the goals to fit local reali-
ties. While I was UNDP Resident Representative in The
Gambia in 2003, I assisted the government to carry out a
mapping exercise to localize MDGs. Simply put, localizing
the MDGs brings out the differences in the rural and urban
performance for each goal. This is important, since differ-
Global Policy Volume 3 . Issue 2 . May 2012
Global Policy (2012) 3:2 doi: 10.1111/j.1758-5899.2011.00166.x ª2011 London School of Economics and Political Science and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Practitioner Commentary
245
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