The world has made significant progress in achieving many of the Goals. Between 1990 and 2002 average overall incomes increased by approximately 21 percent. The number of people in extreme poverty declined by an estimated 130 million 1 . Child mortality rates fell from 103 deaths per 1,000 live births a year to 88. Life expectancy rose from 63 years to nearly 65 years. An additional 8 percent of the developing world's people received access to water. And an additional 15 percent acquired access to improved sanitation services.
Figure 1: Rising national incomes reduce the risk of cival war
Table 2: Population living below the poverty line
But progress has been far from uniform across the world—or across the Goals. There are huge disparities across and within countries. Within countries, poverty is greatest for rural areas, though urban poverty is also extensive, growing, and underreported by traditional indicators ( table 2 ).
Sub-Saharan Africa is the epicenter of crisis, with continuing food insecurity, a rise of extreme poverty, stunningly high child and maternal mortality, and large numbers of people living in slums ( maps 1 , 2 , and 3 ), and a widespread shortfall for most of the MDGs. Asia is the region with the fastest progress, but even there hundreds of millions of people remain in extreme poverty, and even fast-growing countries fail to achieve some of the nonincome Goals. Other regions have mixed records, notably Latin America, the transition economies, and the Middle East and North Africa, often with slow or no progress on some of the Goals and persistent inequalities undermining progress on others.
There is also significant variation in progress toward the MDGs:
Map 1: Child mortality rate, 2002
Map 2: Maternal mortality ratio, 2000
- The proportion of undernourished people is falling slowly in most regions of the world. Western Asia, Oceania, and CIS Asia are the exceptions, where the proportion has actually risen over the past decade. In Sub-Saharan Africa, some countries have seen progress, but overall proportions of undernourishment remain high with little change.
- In primary education there is progress in most regions, but Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia are still significantly off track. Most poor children who attend primary school in the developing world learn shockingly little.
- Gender equality remains an unfulfilled goal, and the education parity target for 2005 will be missed in many countries, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
- Child mortality rates have generally declined, but progress has slowed in many regions, and reversals are being recorded in the Commonwealth of Independent States. Progress has also been limited in East Asia, South Asia, West Asia, and Oceania, and mortality remains extremely high in Sub-Saharan Africa (see map 1 ).
- Maternal mortality remains unacceptably high in every region, reflecting low public attention to women's needs and inadequate access to -sexual and reproductive health information and services, including emergency obstetric services (see map 2 ).
- HIV/AIDS now infects about 40 million people. It is pandemic in southern Africa, and it poses a serious threat, particularly to women and adolescents, in every other developing region. The incidence of tuberculosis, still extremely high, is increasing as an opportunistic infection associated with HIV/AIDS. Malaria, an ecologically based parasite, remains a significant threat to health in many tropical regions and is pandemic in Sub-Saharan Africa.
- The share of population with access to safe drinking water has increased substantially. Most regions are now on track, except for Sub-Saharan Africa and rural areas in most regions.
- The world is not on track to meet the sanitation goal. Progress has been too slow in South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and much of the rest of Asia.
- About 900 million people are estimated to live in slum-like conditions characterized by insecure tenure, inadequate housing, and a lack of access to water or sanitation. The highest share of slum dwellers is in Sub-Saharan- Africa and South Asia, accounting for more than 70 percent of the urban population in many cities (see map 3 ). Both West and East Asia (excluding China) have registered a rise in the number of slum dwellers since 1990 but a slight decline in the proportion. The same phenomenon is occurring in landlocked developing countries, small island developing states, and Least Developed Countries. In most other subregions, progress is either absent or lagging.
- All developing regions have experienced substantial environmental degradation over the past decade, which could very well worsen as a result of long-term, manmade global climate change. Many countries are struggling because their natural resource base—specifically the forests, fisheries, soil, and water that survival and livelihoods depend on—is progressively degraded and subject to rising levels of pollution. Each year, roughly 15 million hectares of forest are cleared, generally in developing countries, resulting in increases in vector-borne diseases, declines in the quantity and quality of water, and more floods, landslides, and local climate changes. The lack of good data and indicators on the environment hides the extent to which most developing regions have suffered extensive environmental degradation over the past decade and are not on track to achieving environmental sustainability.
Map 3: Share of urban population living in slums |
