PH seen missing Millennium Development Goals

The Asian Development Bank said Asia-Pacific countries, including the Philippines, are expected to miss several of 2015 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

In a report, ADB said the Philippines and its neighbors had succeeded in leading global growth through robust expansion of their economies, but this was not enough for them to stay on track to meeting all eight MDGs by the 2015 deadline.

“In Asia Pacific, several MDGs will not be met, and others will require significant commitment and effort to come close to attainment,” ADB said in a report titled “ADB’s Support for Achieving the Millennium Development Goals.”

The Philippines, ADB said, was not on the way to meeting the second goal, which is “universal access to primary education.”

Based on ADB’s assessment, the Philippines has a score of nearly 4 out of a scale of 1 to 5, which means “no progress.”

A score of 1 indicates “early achievement” of the goal, 2 means “on track” to meeting the goal, 3 means “slow pace of progress” toward the goal, 4 reflects “no progress,” and 5 means “regression.”

According to government data, net enrolment ratio among primary-school aged children in the Philippines was relatively decent at over 94 percent in 2004, but there was little indication that the level would increase soon.

The Philippines is said to have the “poorest capability” to meet the MDG goal on primary education together with Nepal and Pakistan, which also have a score of nearly 4 points.

The Philippines also scored poorly on the first MDG, which is to reduce poverty.

According to the first MDG, poverty incidence should be halved by 2015 from the level in the 1990s and that extreme poverty should be eradicated. In the case of the Philippines, poverty incidence should fall to about 18 percent two years from now.

However, latest official estimate showed that poverty rate stood at 27.9 percent as of the first semester of 2012. Moreover, about 10 percent of Filipinos were estimated to be living in extreme poverty (in the Philippines, people living in extreme poverty are defined as those belonging to households with less than P5,458 a month).