Think MDGs, act LGUs

By Marifi Jara

The Millennium Development Goals, or the MDGs, has for a while now been a buzzword among the development sector. Non-government organizations and civil society groups have been keeping watch on the numbers as reported by the national government, particularly by NEDA and the NSO.

But media coverage has been sparse and as a consequence, awareness of the public, who stand to benefit from the achievement of the MDG targets, has also been, well, practically nil.

We in media are not taking all the blame, though. Our government officials, especially those in the executive branch and more importantly at the local level have neither been all that active in talking about it.

Did you hear any candidate, whether a re-electionist or a newbie, mention “MDGs” during the campaign period in the local elections in May last year? Have any of the re-elected and elected officials ever mentioned it so far? I don’t think so. GMA has mentioned it in her state of the nation addresses, but there was never much stress, really.

My  suspicion is, and this is shared by other community journalists in Luzon whom I was with in a recent  seminar, not many of our local execs are aware of  the MDGs and if they are, do not really appreciate the weight of these commitments.

So what are these MDGs, anyway?

Humor me and let’s have a bit of MDG-101.

The MDGs are promises that our government, along with the other 188 member countries of the United Nations, pledged to achieve between the year 2000 to 2015. That means we are now actually midway into the deadline and no one seems to be really taking it all that seriously.

Our numbers do look pretty good. And side by side with other developing countries, it is very easy to get the impression that we are indeed faring very well.

What are these promises?

There are eight:

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

2. Achieve universal primary education

3. Promote gender equality and empower women

4. Reduce child mortality

5. Improve maternal health

6. Combat HIV/Aids, malaria and other diseases

7. Ensure environmental sustainability

8. Develop a global partnership for development

These are the actual terms laid out under the UN commitment. Too technical-sounding if you ask me. Translated into layman’s terms, what these involve are the very basic social services that our government really should be delivering in the first place.

And  given our Local Government Code, deli-very of  these services are supposed to be decentralized, meaning, our city, municipal  and provincial have the main responsibility of making sure that people get better lives.

Benjamin Turiano, director of NEDA’s Development Information, said they do have a plan for an intensified campaign to bring the MDGs at the local level. This, of course, would not be all that easy. But we’ll have to continue on that next week.

(Readers may reach columnist at marifijara@gmail.com. For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/roots/
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