Assessing the achievements of the Millennium Development Goals in Southern Africa

Abstract

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were put forward in early 2000 and the targets are to be reached in 2015. They are an inclusive set of well- defined goals that primarily seek to put development at the forefront of national agendas by persuading governments to commit resources to address socio-economic backlogs in their respective countries. Many reports have been produced on progress with The Millennium Development Goals but certain methodologies do not accurately reflect individual country’s progress. Governments need adequate information about their country’s performance. In this article, the performance of Southern African countries is analyzed separately. Time series data sourced from the United Nations data base were used to estimate parameters. The results suggest that of the six MDG goals examined, none of the Southern African countries is poised to achieve all six goals. At best, Botswana and Swaziland could achieve three of the goals.