The Africa Region Misses the Deadline for the Millennium Development Goals: What Now?

Kebogile E Mokwena

doi:10.4172/2329-891x.1000174

Abstract

The current year sees the deadline for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and there is cause for applause for those regions and countries which set goals and were able to achieve them. However, most African countries were not able to reach their goals, and this paper aims to consider this ‘failure’ in the context of the African region, and to consider lessons learnt which will be of value for the future of development programs for Africa. As a region, Africa faces many challenges, including limited human and financial resources, regional conflict and poor governance. A major factor that worked against the ability to reach the MDGs in Africa is under-development in many areas of the continent.

Highlights

The current year sees the deadline for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and there is cause for applause for those regions and countries which set goals and were able to achieve them
Health-related MDGs require the implementation of public health interventions, which has certain pre-requisites as set out by the Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion [1]
[2] argued that from the beginning of the MDG countdown, it was predicted and reported by several authors, that the goals are not reachable for many African countries. This is because the achievement of the MDGs depended on, amongst others, health infrastructure, policies for monitoring and evaluating, human and financial resources and public health activism, which remain challenging for many countries in the African region