Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and India

          India is a signatory to the Millennium Declaration adopted at the United Nations General Assembly in September 2000, and has consistently reaffirmed its commitment towards the eight development goals. The targets of the MDGs converge with India’s own development goals to reduce poverty and other areas of deprivation.

          India has witnessed significant progress towards the MDGs, with some targets having been met ahead of the 2015 deadline, however progress has been inconsistent. While India has achieved the target for reducing poverty by half, it is falling short of achieving the target for reducing hunger. The country has achieved gender parity in primary school enrolment, yet it is lagging behind on targets for primary school enrolment.

          India has made progress in providing clean drinking water, however access to sanitation facilities remains inadequate. But on other indicators, the performance has been far from satisfactory. India lags behind on targets for empowering women through wage employment and political participation, reducing child and infant mortality and improving access to adequate sanitation to eliminate open defecation.

          The Millennium Development Goals influenced development policy formulation and planning globally. Along with bringing critical development challenges to the forefront, they also provided countries with a strong target-oriented agenda. While India has been moving in the right direction in some areas, there is still work remaining in the others. This is therefore an opportune moment to incorporate the lessons learned from the MDGs, into the sustainable development goals and build upon the unfinished MDG agenda.

          The eight MDG goals included halving the incidence of extreme poverty and eradication of hunger, universalization of primary education, promoting gender equality and empowerment of women, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health, combating HIV/AIDSA, malaria and other diseases, ensuring environmental sustainability including universal access to safe drinking water and developing global partnership for development.

          India has been moderately successful in reducing poverty. In 1990, the all India Poverty Head Count Ratio (PHCR) was estimated to be 47.8%. In 2011-12, the PHCR was 21.9%. This indicates that, India has achieved the poverty reduction target, however, progress is uneven. This was a result of economic growth as well as increased social spending on interventions such as MGNREGA and the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM). Nevertheless, estimates from 2012 reveal that, over 270 million Indians continue to live in extreme poverty – making the post-2015 goal of eliminating extreme poverty by 2030 challenging.

          However, eradicating hunger remains a key challenge. India is home to one quarter of the world’s undernourished population, over a third of the world’s underweight children, and nearly a third of the world’s food-insecure people. In 1990, when the MDGs were formulated, 53.5 percent of all Indian children were malnourished. In 2015, malnourishment declined to 40 percent. This is still below the target of reducing malnourishment to 26 percent.

          India has made significant progress in universalizing primary education, and is moderately on track to achieve this MDG. Enrolment and completion rates of girls in primary school have improved and are catching up with those of boys, as are elementary completion rates. At the national level, male and female youth literacy rate is likely to be at 94.81% and 92.47%.

          In 2009, India introduced the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act (RTE), however the quality of education remains a major concern. Another issue, which will have to be addressed, is the large numbers of children remaining out of school and failing to complete primary education, particularly in the case of girls, children in rural areas and those belonging to minority communities.

          India is on track to achieve gender parity at all education levels, having already achieved it at the primary level. But women’s literacy rates lag behind that of men, indicating women’s poorer learning outcomes and opportunities. In 2015, India had only 65 women representatives out of 542 members in Lok Sabha, while there are 31 female representatives in the 250 member Rajya Sabha. Hence presently the proportion of seats in National Parliament held by women is only 12.24% against the target of 50%.

          The fourth MDG aimed to reduce mortality among children under five by two-thirds. India’s Under Five Mortality (U5MR) declined from 125 per 1,000 live births in 1990 to 40 per 1,000 live births in 2015. The MDG target is of 42 per 1000, which suggests that India is moderately on track, largely due to the sharp decline in recent years.

          Child survival in India needs sharper focus. This includes better managing neonatal and childhood illnesses and improving child survival, particularly among vulnerable communities. Survival risk remains a key challenge for the disadvantaged who have little access to reproductive and child health services. IMR is lowest in Kerala (12) and highest for Madhya Pradesh (54). The key to significant progress in reducing U5MR and infant mortality rates rests with reducing neonatal deaths, that is, infant deaths that occur within a year of birth. The large scale of under-nutrition in expectant mothers and children poses a critical development challenge for India.

          From a Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) of 437 per 100,000 live births in 1990-91, India was required to reduce MMR to 109 per 100,000 live births by 2015. Between 1990 and 2006, there has been some improvement in the Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR), which has declined to 160 per 100,000 live births in 2015. Safe motherhood depends on the delivery by trained personnel, particularly through institutional facilities. Delivery in institutional facilities has risen from 26 percent in 1992-93 to 78 percent in 2015. Consequently, deliveries by skilled personnel have increased at the same pace, from 33 percent to 78.2 percent in the same period.

          The prevalence of HIV, malaria and tuberculosis in India has declined significantly and India has been generally on-track with regards to achievement of this goal. India has made significant strides in reducing the prevalence of HIV and AIDS across different types of high risk categories. Much of this decline can be attributed to greater awareness and increasing condom use.

          India accounts for one-fifth of the global incidence of tuberculosis (TB), but India has made progress in halting its prevalence. Treatment success rates have remained steady and tuberculosis prevalence per lakh population has reduced from 465 in year 1990 to 211 in 2013. TB incidence per 100,000 population has also reduced from 216 in year 1990 to 171 in 2013.

          India has made steady progress towards achieving the seventh MDG of ensuring environmental sustainability. Forest cover has increased to 21.23 percent - an increase of 5871 sq. km, and protected areas cover to about 4.83 percent of the country’s total land area. Reducing the energy intensity of GDP growth through higher energy efficiency will be the key to achieving energy security.

          India is on-track for achieving the MDG target for sustainable access to safe drinking water. The overall proportion of households having access to improved water sources increased from 68.2 percent in 1992-93 to 94 percent in 2015.However, with 47% people with sanitation facilies, India has not recorded similar progress in improving sanitation facilities over the last decade.

          As part of the globalization process and integration with the global economy, India has emerged as one of the major development partners for fostering techno-economic and intellectual assistance to various developed and developing countries across the world. The Indian ICT industry, in particular, the IT software and services and ITES sectors have managed to catch up with the global leaders. As a part of its development partnership activities, India has helped developing countries through technical assistance, capacity-building support, economic assistance, and provided market access to least developed countries.

          The United Nations General Assembly in 2015 adopted the new set of 17 goals for sustainable development.  These goals replace the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDG) adopted by the UN in 2000. The new sets of SDGs are to be achieved by the year 2030. While MDGs had 8 goals, 21 targets and 61 indicators, SDGs have 17 goals with 169 targets. MDGs focussed on developing countries whereas SDGs are meant for all countries. Pillars of human development, human rights and equity are deeply rooted in SDGs which were not as apparent in MDGs. Again, SDGs include a vision of partnerships with private sector; MDGs had no concrete role for the Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), whereas SDGs have incorporated it from the framing stage itself.

 The following are the 17 SDGs:

1.     End poverty in all its forms everywhere;

2.     End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture;

3.     Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all;

4.     Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all;

5.     Achieve gender equality and empower all women;

6.     Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all;

7.     Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all;

8.     Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all;

9.     Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation;

10.    Reduce inequality within and among countries

11.    Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable;

12.    Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns;

13.    Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts;

14.    Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development;

15.    Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss;

16.    Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels; and

17.    Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development.

          India has made a significant progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and some targets have been achieved. However progress has been mixed. There is a scope to accelerate progress towards achieving the MDG targets that have not been achieved and new targets included in SDGs. This transitioning needs better coordination and convergence efforts at state and national level to strategize, develop a country framework and state specific action plans in context of recently adopted SDGs which focus on five Ps i.e. People, Planet, Prosperity, Peace, and Partnership.