Press release

7 Jul 2011

Beirut

UN Launches Millennium Development Goals Report 2011
Western Asia Betters Maternal, Children Survival and Health

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Beirut, 7 July 2011 (United Nations Information Service) – A United Nations report released today on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) showed that Western Asia made good progress in improving the survival and health of mothers and children, as maternal deaths declined by 52 percent between 1990 and 2008 largely due to increases in skilled attendance at birth, skilled antenatal care and contraceptive use, as well as a drop in adolescent childbearing. The report was launched by the UN Information Centre in Beirut in collaboration with the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) in a press conference at the UN House in Beirut. Acting Director of ESCWA’s Economic Development and Globalization Division, Tarik Alami, gave a presentation on the major findings of the report with a particular focus on the Western Asia region. He said progress in the reduction of adolescent pregnancies in Western Asia has stagnated since 2000 and the adolescent birth rate remains high at 52 births per 1,000 women 15-19 years old. Alami revealed that the death rate of children under the age of five declined from 68 percent to 32 percent between 1990 and 2009, adding that the proportion of children under the age of five who are underweight decreased from 11 percent to seven percent over the same timeframe (excluding Yemen). But the proportion of children aged 12-23 months who received at least one dose of measles vaccine decreased from 84 percent to 82 percent between 2000 and 2009, threatening some of the recent progress on child mortality, the report said. UNIC Beirut Director Bahaa Elkoussy said in his introductory remarks that the MDGs report is based on data compiled by the UN Inter-Agency Expert Group on MDGs Indicators in response to calls from the UN General Assembly for periodic assessments of progress towards achieving the MDGs. “Since they were first adopted, the MDGs have raised awareness and shaped a broad vision that remains the overarching framework for the development activities of the UN. At the September 2010 MDG Summit in New York, world leaders put forward an ambitious action plan - or a roadmap - outlining what is needed to meet the goals by the set deadline of 2015,” Elkoussy said. According to the report, Western Asia is one of three regions that are not on track to meet the poverty-reduction target of the MDGs. “The proportion of people in Western Asia living on less than $1.25 a day – the international poverty line defined by the World Bank – increased from 2 percent to 6 percent between 1990 and 2005,” the report said. Popular protests and uprisings across Western Asia and Northern Africa since the beginning of 2011 have led to a temporary stagnation of economies of the countries of the region. According to UN experts, the economies of countries such as Yemen, Syria and Bahrain will be particularly affected, which may make it even harder for Western Asia to reduce poverty in the region until stability is restored. On education, the 2011 MDGs report revealed that Western Asia made some progress on access to primary education, but will unlikely meet the target of universal primary education by 2015. The region reached 88 percent enrolment in 2009, up from 83 percent in 1999. On employment, the report said progress in reducing “vulnerable employment,” characterized by informal working arrangements, lack of adequate social protection, low pay and difficult working conditions, stalled following the global economic crisis. The proportion of people employed as either self-account or unpaid family workers increased from 28 percent to 29 percent between 2008 and 2009. Women’s participation in politics also remains among the lowest in the world, with only 9 percent of seats held by women in single or lower houses of national parliaments by end-January 2011. On environmental sustainability, the report says the limits for sustainable water resources have already been exceeded in Western Asia, where in 2005 more than 100 percent of the internal renewable water resources were withdrawn. The report, which is an annual assessment of regional progress towards achieving the MDGs, reflects the most comprehensive and up-to-date data.
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