March 14, 2007	Wednesday	Safar 24, 1428

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PESHAWAR, March 13: The NWFP will achieve half of the targets set under the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals by 2015, says a report.

The report “NWFP Millennium Development Goals Survey 2005” reveals that the province will achieve targets for 15 out of 32 indicators. Targets for three other indicators can be achieved with more efforts and 14 targets for different indicators were unlikely to be met.

The NWFP planning and development department in collaboration with the International Union for Conservation of Nature has complied the first-ever report at the provincial level that covers progress on the MDGs.

The report was recently distributed among administrative heads of various departments for necessary action, an official told Dawn.

Pakistan is a signatory to the eight MDGs adopted by the United Nations in 2000. The goals include reducing extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, promoting gender parity, improving health outcomes and ensuring environmental sustainability, empowerment and community participation in achieving the goals.

The MDGs cover 18 targets with 48 indicators, whereas Pakistan had adopted 16 targets and 37 indicators for monitoring. The NWFP MDGs report covers seven goals and 32 indicators.

According to the report, halving the proportion of people below the poverty line by 13 per cent by 2015 cannot be achieved in the NWFP. In 2005, 42.5 per cent of the total population was living below the poverty line.

Halving the proportion of people who suffer from hunger is another important target. To achieve the target, efforts are required for brining down the ratio of underweight children under the age of five years from 40 per cent to less than 20 per cent in 2015. The report says the NWFP reduced the ratio to 38 per cent in 2005 and it has to make great efforts to achieve the target.

Ensuring that children completed a full course of primary schooling by 2015 is another target.

To this end, the report says that the NWFP has achieved 47 per cent enrolment of the primary group by 2005 and it has to attract more investment and introduce policy reform to achieve the target. “The present trend is negative,” states the report.

Achieving 80 per cent literacy rate by 2015 is an important target and it cannot be achieved in the NWFP because of low gross enrolment ratio. The NWFP achieved a literacy rate of 45 per cent by 2005 against the 53 per cent target set at the national level.

Moreover, the province is also lagging behind in eliminating gender disparity in primary and secondary education.

Under the MDGs’, the share of women in wage employment in non-agricultural sector should have been 14 per cent of the total in 2015. In 2005, the NWFP figures were 4.03 per cent, which shows that the target will not be achieved.

The report says the NWFP has made tremendous improvement in the overall indicators for reducing by two-third, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate. It says the NWFP will be able to achieve the targets in this component with little effort.

Reducing by three-quarters, between 1990 and 2015, the maternal mortality rate is another target. However, according to the report, the current state of affairs in various areas relating to it is disappointing and the province will not be able to achieve most of its indicators.

The target of controlling the spread of HIV/Aids will also not be achieved in the province.

According to the report, there has been progress on controlling the spread of malaria and other diseases, integrating principals of sustainable development into country polices, reversing the loss of natural resources and halving the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation.