WORKSHOP C- THE MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS
Discussion leaders Mr Agafili Patisela Eteuati Tolovaa, MP, Samoa, (left) and Hon. Anglu Farrugia, MP, (right).
accountable for their MDGs commitments by monitoring their actions. As lawmakers, Parliamentarians could ensure that their MDGs commitments were reflected in the national plans and policies including national budgets. In order to attain these, Parliamentarians should be provided with a voice in the development debate and should be provided the resources to exercise their oversight function.
Eradication of poverty and hunger is everyone’s responsibility
Hon. Anglu Farrugia, MP, spoke on how the MDGs focused on dealing with extreme poverty, wherein the given aid should provide a long- term basic benefit and eliminate
the dependency on humanitarian assistance. He acknowledged the assistance that had been provided by UN agencies in ensuring that the MDGs were implemented, and observed that the MDGs had been the most focused and result-oriented global initiative so far in combating extreme poverty.
Progress that had been made in eliminating poverty was the number of workers living on less than $1.25 a day had dropped by over 294 million between 2001 and 2011 but added that more was still required in this regard.
There had been progress made in providing access to portable water and the number of mortalities had halved between 1990 and 2010; these results differed from one region
to another. More than 1.2 billion people still lived in extreme poverty however and 870 million people were undernourished, including over 100 million children. There were 55 million children who still did not have access to primary school education and more than 123 million children were illiterate.
Mr Farrugia highlighted some of the main challenges that had made it difficult to attain the goals. They included resource allocations, sustainable plans, financial and trading systems, security, stability and good governance and the waste of food and resources. There is a great need to collectively take responsibility in ensuring that social injustice brought about by extreme poverty was addressed.
Promoting the MDGs within the national plans
Mr Agafili Tolovaa, MP, spoke about Samoa’s progress in achieving the MDGs and what challenges the country had been confronted with. In the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, the food poverty line was very low. There was still some level of hardship and poverty and this could not be measured by paid income in Samoa. Rising inflation was another challenge which made it difficult to eradicate poverty and hunger.
In ensuring there was an attainment of universal primary education, Samoa made education compulsory for children of ages 5-14, keeping in line with the ratification of the UN Convention of the Rights of
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