Development goals go 'off track'
The Millennium Development Goals are dangerously off track, the International Development Secretary said
Thursday March 11 2010
The Millennium Development Goals are dangerously off track, the International Development Secretary warned as he announced a package of measures to help developing countries.
Time is running out to tackle the issues of hunger, education and child mortality, Douglas Alexander told a conference of development experts in London.
New funding from the Department for International Development includes £150 million for vaccines in the developing world, which could help prevent 4.2 million deaths over the next five years by protecting against diseases including pneumonia and diarrhoea.
More than two million children under five die of vaccine preventable diseases every year.
The money will go to the GAVI Alliance - formally the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation.
Mr Alexander said a key UN summit in September must be used as a turning point to get the goals, agreed by developed countries in 2000, back on track to be achieved by 2015.
He wants a new Global Development Action Plan to include commitments for developed countries to double aid for basic education in low income countries from $3 billion to $6 billion a year.
He is also calling for the action plan to promise a doubling of global aid for maternal, newborn and child healthcare from $4 billion US dollars to $8 billion a year.
The International Development Secretary also announced a new push to help provide free healthcare in Nepal, Malawi, Ghana, Liberia, Burundi and Sierra Leone, and a fight against malnutrition in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India, Nepal, Nigeria and Zimbabwe.
According to the UN only 11 of 30 countries are on track to meet the goal of halving poverty and hunger, while 20 of the countries need more progress on education.
