KARACHI, Sept 22: While some of the speakers at a meeting were pessimist that the millennium development goals could not be achieved, some others were optimistic and stressed that if the government made serious efforts the goals could be achieved in a decade.

They were speaking at the inauguration of a two-day consultative conference on “Beijing and Beyond: Millennium Development Goals”, organized jointly by the National Association of Industrial, Professional and Agricultural Women, Sindh Women Development Department and the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM).

Sindh Culture Secretary Mahtab A. Rashdi, former Sindh Education Minister Anita Ghulamali, Akber Abdullah, Sadiqa Salahuddin, Rasheed Bajwa, Dr Ghulam Nabi Kazi, Dr Naheed Jamali, Shamiem Kazmi, Maimoona Noor, Khalida Saleemi, Jahanara Hai, Farkhanda Aurangzeb, Shabana and others also spoke.

They suggested that efforts be made to provide education to all particularly women so that they became aware of their rights and responsibilities, and could play their role in the development and progress of the country, in general, and their family, in particular.

They demanded that more allocations be made in the health sector so that everybody, particularly those living in the remote rural areas, could be provided with a proper health care.

They regretted that funds allocated for social sector are not properly utilized.

They said that while it is pointed out that there is a scarcity of schools, it has also been noted that schools, particularly in the rural areas, were constructed on political considerations and at some schools, there were no students.

One of the speakers said that his organization had taken over a few government clinics and hospitals in Rahimyar Khan, and with the same budget they had increased the salary of doctors, who have now been banned from doing private practice, and number of patients has increased many-fold, and the patients are also getting medicines free of cost. The budget is sufficient and there was shortage of funds, he added.

Another speaker said though there were many laws to control the ever growing environmental pollution, these were not being implemented.

Speakers said that achieving the millinium development goals was a difficult target and it was very difficult for the government to achieve it alone.

They, however, suggested that if every section of the society — the government, the NGOs, the civil society organizations and concerned citizens – joined hands and made honest efforts, these goals could be achieved.

The goals that all the countries have agreed to achieve by 2015 are: to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; to achieve universal primary education; to promote gender equality and empower women; to reduce child mortality; to improve maternal health; to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, to ensure environmental sustainability and develop global partnership for development.