 Children from the Indonesian town of Suspini, in Timor, play barefoot among the flames burning a field near their homes. The fire is meant to enrich new growth from the field. The births of many of the children have never been registered, just as their parents weddings have never been documented. (THANE BURNETT/SUN MEDIA)
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SULAWESI ISLAND, Indonesia — The greatest promises ever made to Earth’s most vulnerable inhabitants, and we’re not keeping our word.
Historic goals, agreed to by the largest number of world powers in the history of mankind — including Canada — and there’s now fear we risk catastrophic failure.
Is it time — as we prepare to host landmark G8 and G20 summits next year — for Canada to command the world stage and champion the cause of humanity’s needy? Or are we doing all we can for those dwelling outside our border?
As you and our federal leaders weigh the numbers, those who tend to the hungry and dying in foreign countries, including here in Indonesia, are hoping you’ll see important progress made and believe all promises can still be realized.
It has become a debate as big as the world and as small as the life of a single child
In 2000 — before 9/11, the Afghanistan campaign, the global fiscal meltdown or H1N1 — Canada and most other countries signed onto the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). They are eight firm objectives with 21 targets and, by the very first promise, are to cut extreme poverty and hunger — especially among children — by half.
The deadline is 2015 — making this the homestretch.
And yet, last month a report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, found a record one billion people worldwide are hungry. More foreign investment — including from countries like Canada — has to be committed, it concluded.
Officials at World Vision estimate the Millennium Development Goal to reduce child mortality is only around 36% of the way to being realized. And a promise to improve maternal health is less than 10% to where it aims to be by 2015.
Spiralling food prices, violence and turbulent economics have clawed back progress, with 3.8 million people in Kenya alone needing food aid — up from 2.5 million earlier this year.
The financial crisis has pushed 100 million people back into extreme poverty.
But huge numbers offer up an unclear view, as every side in the debate over progress of the MDGs have their own slide-rule and power point presentation that gives a slightly different reflection.
Even some original data used to measure progress is flawed, warns Amir Attaran, an associate professor in the Faculties of Law and Medicine at the University of Ottawa and one of harshest critics of the MDG system.
His latest report is entitled: “The Millennium Development Goals: Or why “Yes, We Can” is seductively felicitous when actually “No, We Aren’t”.
Among many stark observations, he notes a previously declining trend of undernourished in developing countries is now increasing.
“A massive fraud” is how he describes much of the handling of the MDGs, during a phone interview with Sun Media. Almost on cue, an emergency vehicle passing him on the street sounds an alarm.
Dr. Garry Conille, a team leader of the Millennium Development Goals Support Cluster for the United Nations Development Program, disagrees, assuring: “We know for sure the MDGs can be achieved...(but) we still have a long way to go and a lot of effort to get there.
“These are not sophisticated targets...they are the minimum.”
To calculate progress, he suggests looking at individual countries, including Senegal’s improved sanitation or advances in African education.
John McArthur, a Canadian development expert and CEO of Millennium Promise, a non-profit organization supporting the United Nation’s MDGs, agrees advancements have been made, including dealing with Measles, a leading cause of death among children.
But he cautions: “This is a bridge moment in the world — we’re setting the course for generations.”
He, and others are calling on Canada to set a time-line to reach a goal where 0.7% of the nation’s income is spent on official development assistance. That number, originated by Nobel Prize-winning Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson four decades ago, is the gold standard in the development community. Of 22 countries steering aid around the globe, 16 have set timetables to reach 0.7% by 2015.
Canada — which contributes around 0.3% — is one of six that haven’t.
When asked about not meeting the 0.7% water-mark, Canada’s International Development Minister, Bev Oda, counters that Canada ranks fourth among G8 nations in terms of the ratio between our development assistance and our gross national income.
“Our government believes that international assistance is not just about dollar figures,” she writes during an email conversation with Sun Media.
“This government remains committed to supporting the MDGs.”
Oda points to a doubling of Canadian assistance to Africa and new measures in untying all Canadian aid in the future, making it easier to get food into the field.
This, as an auditor general’s report, released earlier this month, found Canada’s foreign aid agency is faltering on promises to deliver $3 billion in foreign assistance money more strategically — with children listed as a priority.
Here in coastal city of Luwuk, poor children gather at night on a dimly lit dock, to douse golf-size rocks in stolen diesel fuel. They then light them on fire and, in bare feet, play soccer with the small, earth-skipping meteors.
They know nothing of promises made — including from Canada.
So what would it mean if we now break our word?
Millennium development goals
1 - End Extreme Poverty and Hunger
2 - Achieve Universal Primary Education
3 - Promote Gender Equality
4 - Reduce Child Mortality
5 - Improve Maternal Health
6 - Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
7 - Ensure Environmental Sustainability
8 - Develop a Global Partnership for Developing
