MDGs and Bangladesh:
The MDGs reflect the actions and targets contained in the Millennium Declaration that was adopted by 189 nations during the UN Millennium Summit in September 2000. Bangladesh has recorded impressive feats in pulling people out of poverty, ensuring that more children, girls and boys, attend school, and have access to clean water. Considerable progress has been made in child survival rate. Bangladesh is among the 16 countries who have received UN recognition for being on track to achieve MDG4. There have been some improvements to address the country’s massive environmental challenges over the past decade as well.
The MDGs are evident in the national planning framework. The revised National Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper has adopted a holistic approach to reduce poverty and improve other social indicators to achieve the MDGs, with special attention to the lagging regions.
Out of the 52 MDG targets, Bangladesh is on track on 19 of them; and 14 of them need attention.
Supported by UNDP and the UN system, the 2009 MDG Progress Report cites that overall improvements in poverty and hunger have been accompanied by rising regional and social disparities including persistent pockets of extreme poverty.
Although Bangladesh is on track to achieve the Net Enrolment target, the drop-out rates are high; enrolling the last 10% of the children (hard-to-reach population), ensuring quality of education for children who are already enrolled in schools, and promoting gender equity in tertiary education, remain as major challenges.
Maternal mortality ratio of Bangladesh at 348 is a cause of concern; limited access to and utilisation of mother and child health services makes it difficult to attain this target. The threat of climate change can also diminish the hard earned beneficial impacts of years of growth and development not just for the people in impoverished settlements along coastal belts and river banks, but for the entire nation.
Achieving full and productive employment for all, including women and young people is behind target. Labour force participation rate is low at about 60% and women’s participation in the labour force is much lower at 29%. It is highly unlikely that Bangladesh will be able to ensure employment for all by 2015. Yet another challenge that Bangladesh faces is in addressing certain pockets of poverty that are lagging far behind with respect to the national averages and where the benefits of MDGs attainment need to be specifically reached. These areas include the urban slums, the hill tracts, coastal belts and other ecologically vulnerable areas.
|
Bangladesh
Goal 1: Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger
Bangladesh is well on track to achieving Goal 1 with poverty coming down to 40 percent in 2005. Also, the average annual rate of poverty reduction till 2005 has been 1.34 percent against the required 1.23 percent to meet the 2015 target. The poverty gap ratio has also decreased dramatically to 9.0 
Goal 2: Achieve Universal Primary Education
While a significant 87 percent has been achieved in terms of primary school enrollment, dropout rates remain high and therefore primary school completion rate low. Progress has been made in adult literacy54 percent in 2005but additional effort is needed to reach the target. 
Goal 3: Promote Gender Equality & Empower Women
Bangladesh has achieved gender parity in primary and secondary education together with being on track with respect to percentage of women employed in agriculture sector. 
Goal 4: Reduce Child Mortality
The country is on track with regard to achieving this goal. Significant strides have been made in all three indicators and if the trend sustains, the country will meet the 2015 target well ahead of schedule. 
Goal 5: Improve Maternal Health
Although the maternal mortality ratio is on track, it remains a challenge for Bangladesh to sustain the rate given the complex socio-economic factors that affect the goal. Also, the percentage of skilled birth attendants is low. 
Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and other diseases
Bangladesh has made some progress in combating the spread of malaria with the number of prevalence dropping from 42 cases per 100,000 in 2001 to 34 in 2005. 
Goal 7: Ensure Environmental Sustainability
While significant progress has been made in terms of access to safe drinking water and sanitary latrines in urban areas, the same remains a challenge in rural areas. Also maintaining wet-lands and bio-diversity is still a challenge. 
Goal 8: Develop a Global partnership for Development
Penetration of telephone lines and internet, particularly cell phone usage, has increased to a great extent but youth employment rate is still low. 
.jpg)
