OPTIMISM VERSUS REALITY In September 2000, member states of the United Nations unanimously set a number of goals to be met by 2015. These included the following: ▪ Reduce by half the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day as well as those who suffer from hunger. ▪ Ensure that all children complete primary schooling. ▪ Eliminate gender inequality at all levels of education. ▪ Reduce by two thirds the mortality rate among children under five years of age. ▪ Reduce the maternal mortality rate by 75 percent. ▪ Halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS as well as the incidence of other major diseases, such as malaria. ▪ Reduce by 50 percent the proportion of people who do not have access to safe drinking water. Can these goals be reached? After reevaluating matters in 2004, a panel of health officials from around the world concluded that optimism has to be tempered with the realization that hoped-for gains do not reflect what is really happening. The foreword to the book State of the World 2005 reports: “Poverty continues to undermine progress in many areas. Diseases such as HIV/AIDS are on the rise, creating public health time bombs in numerous countries. In the last five years, some 20 million children have died of preventable waterborne diseases, and hundreds of millions of people continue to live with the daily misery and squalor associated with the lack of clean drinking water and adequate sanitation.”
Posted on: Wed, 30 Jul 2014 02:15:03 +0000
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