MDG: progress in India

1. MDG Brief
Excerpts from publications.
May 16, 2012
Contents
Press 1
Millennium Development Goals: India makes impressive progress in 10 out of 22 indicators 1
Goals and Targets from the Millennium Declaration 4
GOAL 1: ERADICATE EXTREME POVERTY & HUNGER 4
GOAL 2: ACHIEVE UNIVERSAL PRIMARY EDUCATION 4
GOAL 3: PROMOTE GENDER EQUALITY AND EMPOWER WOMEN 4
GOAL 4: REDUCE CHILD MORTALITY 4
GOAL 5: IMPROVE MATERNAL HEALTH 4
GOAL 6: COMBAT HIV/AIDS, MALARIA AND OTHER DISEASES 4
GOAL 7: ENSURE ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY 5
GOAL 8:DEVELOP A GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP FOR DEVELOPMENT 5
Press
Millennium Development Goals: India makes impressive progress in 10
out of 22 indicators
With roughly three years left for India to achieve the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs), the country has managed to show
significant progress in 10 of the 22 indicators.1 1
Refer to Appendix A for goals and
With impressive gains in improving primary education enrollment targets
rate, promoting gender equality and increasing forest cover, the
country’s lackluster performance in reducing overall poverty and
health indicators has dragged down the performance of the overall
South Asian region.
The millennium development goals are a list of eight international
development parameters that all 193 members of the United Na-
tions have to achieve by 2015. The progress in the 8 parameters is
measured by 22 socio-economic indicators.
India, compared to most nations in the Asia Pacific, has made
very slow progress in eradicating poverty over the period of 10 years,
according to the Asia - Pacific Regional MDG report 2011-122 . 2
http://www.unescap.
org/pdd/calendar/
CSN-MDG-NewDelhi-Nov-2011/
MDG-Report2011-12.pdf

2. MDG brief
With 49.4 % people living on less than $1.25 per day in the country,
the metric for poverty used by MDGs, in 1994, the country has able to
reduce it to only 41.6% in the ten years to 2005.
The following data is from PovcalNet3 3
developed by the Development
In the following tables, Research Group of the World Bank
http://iresearch.worldbank.org/
PovcalNet/index.htm
Inc/Con: Welfare measured by income or consumption
Headcount: % of population living in households with consumption
or income per person below the poverty line.
Watts’ poverty index: mean across the population of the proportionate
poverty gaps, as measured by the log of the ratio of the poverty
line to income, where the mean is formed over the whole popula-
tion, counting the non poor as having zero poverty gap.
Gini index: measure of inequality between 0 (everyone has the same
income) and 100 (richest person has all the income)
MLD index: mean across the population of the log of the overall
mean divided by individual income.
Survey Inc/ Mean Pov Head Pov Pov gap Watts Gini MLD Detail
year Con ($) line ($) (%) gap (%) square index index index
2004.5 C 53.49 38 41.64 10.51 3.69 0.1328 33.38 0.1892 weighted
1993.5 C 46.68 38 49.40 13.56 5.07 0.174 30.82 0.1604 weighted
1987.5 C 44.84 38 53.59 15.81 6.27 0.2063 31.88 0.1701 weighted
1983 C 42.76 38 55.51 17.24 7.19 0.2329 31.11 0.1602 weighted
1977.5 C 39.17 38 65.89 23.22 10.64 0.3255 35.09 0.2117 weighted
Table 1: India
Survey Inc/ Mean Pov Head Pov Pov gap Watts Gini MLD
year Con ($) line ($) (%) gap (%) square index index index
2009.5 C 54.96 38 34.28 7.53 2.46 0.0914 29.96 0.1548
2004.5 C 49.93 38 43.83 10.66 3.65 0.1325 30.46 0.1595
1993.5 C 43.76 38 52.46 14.33 5.36 0.1828 28.59 0.1393
1987.5 C 42.85 38 55.60 16.27 6.43 0.2112 30.13 0.1548
1983 C 41.03 38 57.78 18.06 7.57 0.2456 30.06 0.1499
1977.5 C 37.51 38 69.02 24.52 11.26 0.3453 34.2 0.2077
Table 2: India – rural
The rate of reduction in poverty is much lower than other south
Asian countries like Bangladesh that has brought down proportion of
exteremely poor people from 66.8% in 1992 to 49.6% in 2005. India’s
poor population is much higher than Pakistan (22.6%), Sri Lanka (7%)
and Turkey (2.7%).
2

3. MDG brief
Survey Inc/ Mean Pov Head Pov Pov gap Watts Gini MLD
year Con ($) line ($) (%) gap (%) square index index index
2009.5 C 73.01 38 28.93 7.39 2.61 0.0906 39.28 0.2565
2004.5 C 62.43 38 36.16 10.16 3.8 0.1336 37.59 0.2333
1993.5 C 54.91 38 40.77 11.39 4.24 0.1491 34.34 0.1929
1987.5 C 50.89 38 47.50 14.43 5.78 0.1916 35.57 0.209
1983 C 48.28 38 48.25 14.62 5.99 0.1923 33.33 0.1821
1977.5 C 45.07 38 54.79 18.61 8.42 0.2554 35.74 0.2132
Table 3: India – urban
The Asia- Pacific region as a whole has however already reached
the MDG of halving the incidence of poverty. The proportion of
people living below $1.25 per day in the region has come down from
50% in 1990 to 22% in 2009.
Out of the 22 indicators, India has achieved 7 while is on track to
achieve another 3 while it is lagging behind in the rest. The South
Asian region as a whole also has a similar profile though if one
excludes India, the region is on track to eradicate extreme poverty by
2015.
Health indicators however continue to suffer in all sub regions in
Asia - Pacific.
“We are in a race against time with just 3 years left to achieve the
MDG. The good news though, is that our analysis shows many of
these goals can still be reached with a re doubling of efforts,” said
Noeleen Heyzer, United Nations under secretary general.
The greatest progress in the region has been in South East Asia
which has already achieved 10 out of 22 assessed indicators and is on
track for another 4. India has the second highest increase in primary
enrollment ratio at 96.9% in 2008, up from 85% in 2000 among all
countries of South West Asia.
The country has lagged behind in bringing infant mortality and
maternal mortality rates down during the 1990-2008 decade signifi-
cantly; however it has made progress in bringing down tuberculosis
prevalence rate and HIV prevalence rates.
Forest cover in the country has improved to 23% of land cover
in 2010, up from 21.5% in 1990. Protected areas have also seen a
marginal increase during the 10 year period to 4.82% in 2010, from
4.49% in 1990. This is the best performance among other nations in
South Asia. Carbon dioxide emissions have, however increased in the
country over the period from 1.48 tons per capita in 2008 to 0.8 tons
per capita in 1990.4 4
http://articles.
economictimes.indiatimes.
com/2012-02-18/news/31074955_1_
mdgs-extreme-poverty-millennium-development-go
3

4. MDG brief
Goals and Targets from the Millennium Declaration
GOAL 1: ERADICATE EXTREME POVERTY & HUNGER
Target 1.A Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people
whose income is less than $1 a day
Target 1.B Achieve full and productive employment and decent work
for all, including women and young people
Target 1.C Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people
who suffer from hunger
GOAL 2: ACHIEVE UNIVERSAL PRIMARY EDUCATION
Target 2.A Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls
alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling
GOAL 3: PROMOTE GENDER EQUALITY AND EMPOWER WOMEN
Target 3.A Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary
education, preferably by 2005, and in all levels of education no
later than 2015
GOAL 4: REDUCE CHILD MORTALITY
Target 4.A Reduce by two thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-
five mortality rate
GOAL 5: IMPROVE MATERNAL HEALTH
Target 5.A Reduce by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio
Target 5.B Achieve universal access to reproductive health
GOAL 6: COMBAT HIV/AIDS, MALARIA AND OTHER DISEASES
Target 6.A Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the spread of
HIV/AIDS
Target 6.B Achieve, by 2010, universal access to treatment for HIV/AIDS
for all those who need it
Target 6.C Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the incidence of
malaria and other major diseases
4

5. MDG brief
GOAL 7: ENSURE ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY
Target 7.A Integrate the principles of sustainable development into
country policies and programmes and reverse the loss of environ-
mental resources
Target 7.B Reduce biodiversity loss, achieving, by 2010, a significant
reduction in the rate of loss
Target 7.C Halve, by 2015, the proportion of the population without
sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation
Target 7.D By 2020, to have achieved a significant improvement in the
lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers
GOAL 8:DEVELOP A GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP FOR DEVELOPMENT
Target 8.A Develop further an open, rule-based, predictable, non-
discriminatory trading and financial system
Target 8.B Address the special needs of least developed countries
Target 8.C Address the special needs of landlocked developing
countries and small island developing States
Target 8.D Deal comprehensively with the debt problems of develop-
ing countries
Target 8.E In cooperation with pharmaceutical companies, provide
access to affordable essential drugs in developing countries
Target 8.F In cooperation with the private sector, make available
benefits of new technologies, especially information and communi-
cations
Note: The Millennium Development Goals and targets come
from the Millennium Declaration, signed by 189 countries, in-
cluding 147 heads of state and government, in September 2000
(http://www.un.org/millennium/declaration/ares552e.htm) and
from further agreement by member states at the 2005 World Summit
(Resolution adopted by the General Assembly – A/RES/60/1). The
goals and targets are interrelated and should be seen as a whole.
They represent a partnership between the developed countries and
the developing countries “to create an environment–at the national
and global levels alike– which is conducive to development and the
elimination of poverty.”5 6 5
United Nations. 2008. Report of the
Secretary-General on the Indicators for
Monitoring the Millennium Develop-
ment Goals. E/CN.3/2008/29. New
York.
Also, http://www.un.org/
millenniumgoals/global.shtml
6
World Bank (Author). Global Mon- 5
itoring Report : Global Monitoring
Report 2011 : Improving the Odds
of Achieving the MDGs. Herndon,
VA, USA: World Bank Publications,
2011. p xvi. http://site.ebrary.com/
lib/britishcouncilonline/Doc?id=
10468648&ppg=18