Government urged to focus on needs of the poor

A UN official said on Tuesday that the Kenyan government needed to concentrate its development efforts on projects aimed at improving the lives of the poor in order to achieve the social and economic development goals which UN member states set for themselves in 2000. Paul Andre de la Porte, UN Development Programme's (UNDP) representative in Kenya, said the country ought to "allocate and utilise resources in a prudent and well-targeted manner" to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by the 2015 deadline. "We will need delivery mechanisms that reach the poor. And we will need to ensure full compliance with existing disbursement mechanisms, if we are to achieve the MDGs," De la Porte, who is also the UN resident co-ordinator, said when he addressed a gathering to launch the Millennium Project's Global Report. "We are confident that on this basis the development partners will find the means to substantially scale up - to fast track - investment in the social services by increasing development assistance both in terms of volume and effectiveness," he added. Kenya's Planning and National Development Minister Peter Anyang' Nyong'o said that a government survey carried out in 2003 had shown that with the exception of two goals - the attainment of universal primary education and halting the spread of HIV/AIDS - Kenya was unlikely to meet most of the other goals. He said that the government had, in consultation with the UN country team, donors and civil society organisations, prepared a MDG needs assessment report that would guide actions intended to help in the achievement of the goals. "What remains now is to align national budgets to the MDGs to reflect our desire and commitment to achieve the goals," said Nyong'o. World leaders met in New York in 2000 and pledged that the world would, by 2015, eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, achieve universal primary education, promote gender equality and empower women, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, ensure environmental sustainability and develop a global partnership for development. Five years on, however, few countries in sub-Saharan Africa are "on track" to achieve those goals. "Sub-Saharan Africa, most dramatically, has been in a downward spiral of AIDS, resurgent malaria, falling food output per person, deteriorating shelter conditions, and environmental degradation, so that most countries in Africa are far off track to achieve most or all of the goals," according to the Millennium Project's Global Report to the UN Secretary-General launched this week. The report is titled "Investing in Development - A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals". The report says that an MDG-based strategy for Africa should focus on rural development with a view to bringing about a "green revolution", and projects aimed at making the continent's rapid growing cities more productive, especially for labour-intensive exports. Africa's health systems were also in need of major investments to enable them to tackle the challenge of HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis and stem the "unconscionably" high child and maternal mortality. "Education strategies need to focus on increasing the supply of infrastructure and human resources and the demand-side incentives for girls and vulnerable students," the report said, adding that Africa also needed a major investments infrastructure for water resources management and energy.