ONE’s DATA Report Reveals Wide Disparities in Africa Poverty Goal Progress
"When developing countries go all out to improve health, education and agriculture, amazing things can happen."
WASHINGTON (May 29, 2013) – New analysis published today in The ONE Campaign’s 2013 DATA Report shows that 30 countries in sub-Saharan Africa have accelerated progress in the last three years on reaching the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and 16 are on track to cut extreme poverty in half by 2015. But further momentum is at risk due to laggard countries where progress has stalled or gone into reverse, as governments across sub-Saharan Africa are set to fall short of their own development commitments by an estimated $243 billion by 2015.
According to ONE’s 2013 DATA Report, ‘Financing the Fight for Africa’s Transformation’, top performing countries include Rwanda, Uganda, Malawi, Ghana and Ethiopia. But at the same time some very large countries, such as Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo, are failing in many areas and slowing down regional progress.
The report is the only major study to rank countries on their overall progress on the MDGs and also assess the contribution that sub-Saharan African countries’ own spending is having on their performance.
The findings show a clear correlation between African countries that are allocating a greater share of government spending to health, education and agriculture over the past decade and improved MDG progress in those areas. From 2000 to 2011, Ethiopia lifted an estimated 10 million people out of extreme poverty, and over the same period the government spent nearly 45% of its total budget on health, education and agriculture.
Tom Hart, US Executive Director of ONE said:
“This data shows that when developing countries go all out to improve health, education and agriculture, amazing things can happen. As world leaders debate future anti-poverty goals, they must not lose sight of achieving the existing ones.
“It’s a make-or-break moment. Those countries in Africa that are lagging behind should be inspired by neighbors that are making dramatic progress. And donor countries must deliver on their promises to Africa too. In the next thousand days, we need a sprint finish for the Millennium Development Goals.”
Looking ahead, the report finds that if African governments met their own political commitments to spend a certain proportion of their budgets on health, education, and agriculture, the results could be transformative.
For example, if Nigeria were to meet its health spending commitment each year from now until 2015, the projected additional funding of $22.5 billion could provide anti-malarial bed nets to every citizen, fully vaccinate every young child against deadly childhood diseases and provide anti-retroviral treatment to every person who is HIV positive. Across all sub-Saharan African countries, an estimated $243 billion in additional resources could be deployed for health, agriculture, and education if governments met their existing political commitments.
The full report can be downloaded here.
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ari.goldberg@one.org
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ONE is a global advocacy and campaigning organization co-founded by Bono and backed by more than 3 million people from around the world dedicated to fighting extreme poverty and preventable disease, particularly in Africa. For more information visit ONE.org.
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