Abstract
This book discusses the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), its targets and achievements, particularly in India’s context, approach and current status in the context of social sector which has received major boost by signing the MDGs.
In September 2000, 147 state heads and 189 nations signed the Millennium Declaration with an aim to make the world free from poverty. This constituted a set of eight interconnected and time-bound development goals towards achieving sustainable development by 2015. The eight goals include: poverty alleviation and hunger reduction (Goal 1), universalisation of primary education (Goal 2), gender equality and women empowerment (Goal 3), health sector development, particularly reduction in child mortality (Goal 4), maternal health improvement (Goal 5) and combating various diseases (Goal 6), ensuring environmental sustainability (Goal 7) and setting up a global partnership for development (Goal 8). It can clearly be seen that the social sector development is the main focus of MDGs as the first six goals fall under that category, thereby implying that any inadequate attention to social sector would jeopardise any country’s overall progress towards sustainable development. Apart from these eight goals, MDGs also comprised of 48 technical indicators to assess the overall global progress towards meeting the eight development goals.
In India’s context, an intensive effort was put on social development in order to ensure equitable distribution of development benefits amongst the masses. There was an increase in expenditure by the government on social services and rural development reflecting the emphasis on social sector. This provided a boost to overall progress of MDGs. Despite the improvement in certain social indicators like near eradication of polio and significant increase in literacy rates enrolment of both boys and girls in primary schools, the progress has been uneven. There still much need to be done in making primary education, food, basic healthcare services available and accessible to its entire population. Even though MDGs provided a momentum to the existing development programmes and policies across the globe, its progress has been slow in areas that require systemic changes, such as in the provisioning quality services through poverty alleviation programmes, primary health care services and community-based nutrition services. India continues to lag behind the levels achieved by East Asian and Southeast Asian countries.
According to the author, there has been only limited positive change in the quality of life of the rural poor and status of women residing in rural India. Issues related to child protection, women trafficking and child labour are becoming more pronounced. India still faces challenges such as joblessness and increasing income inequality and spread of communicable diseases. The social indicators have shown disturbing gender gaps, rural–urban differences and wide variation across country despite steady economic growth over the past decade. Persistent inequalities, ineffective delivery of public services, weak accountability systems and gaps in the implementation of pro-poor policies seem to be the major hurdles in the progress of social sector in India. The author has included all the possible factors that hinder our nation’s development and also the MDGs.
Hazra has not only covered the major sectors in his book but has also carefully analysed each of these sectors particularly poverty, food security, education, women empowerment and health care in his book in the form of separate chapters. He has also made some suggestions at the end of these chapters.
With regards to the poverty target, the author feels that it will be possible to achieve the poverty target in 2015, particularly reduction in the proportion of poor by half as the proportion of poor declined to about 27.5 per cent in 2004–05 (from 36 per cent in 1990), which is further likely to fall to 18 per cent in 2015. But in order to reduce the absolute number of poor below the poverty line, there is a need for policies that result in rapid reduction of poverty. Since Indian poverty is more rural in nature, rapid and sustained poverty reduction requires pro-poor growth—a pace and pattern of growth in which poor women and men contribute, participate and benefit. I agree with the author’s view that agricultural growth will have the greatest potential for poverty reduction, particularly amongst the poorest of the poor. Agriculture not only helps in bringing down the poverty level, but also helps in ensuring food security. The success of the Green Revolution is an example that reflects the role for agriculture in poverty reduction and overall growth.
Although India has made substantial progress in overcoming national food insecurity by giving priority to self-sufficiency in food grain production, severe food insecurity still exists in various parts of the country despite having huge buffer stocks, rising food prices being the major reason. The major challenge of ensuring food security lies in the distribution of food and making it affordable to the poor. The author recommends that the government should empower small-scale farmers to feed the population since local food production drives food security. Also, as already mentioned in the above paragraph, we need to give more importance to agricultural sector by increasing the investment in the sector which employs majority of rural population, thus creating an income for the rural poor and making food affordable for them.
The author fears that given the current pace of progress, India may not fulfil many of MDG targets, and hence development process needs to continuously strive for improvement in the standard of living and quality of life of the people through an inclusive development strategy that focuses on both income and non-income dimensions.
The author has suggested some comprehensive measures which will be instrumental in future policy formulation to ensure a sustainable growth in social sector and intensifying the country’s efforts towards its MDG commitments. With regards to food insecurity, the government should focus more on improving the distribution of food grain and should also empower and encourage small farmers to feed the entire population. Hence, there is a need for a revamped public distribution system (PDS) and greater public investment to address the need of rural population. The author further suggests that the high economic growth coupled with carefully designed and targeted pro-poor policies is crucial for attaining the effective decentralisation, efficient delivery of services and respect for human rights, rule of law and accountability, which are necessary in order to achieve MDG targets. Public policies should focus on balanced regional development, investment in health, education and infrastructure, particularly in backward regions and communities, and should be tackled with utmost priority. Apart from endorsing these recommendations, I agree with the Social Watch Report 2013, which enunciates that the government should enable people to acquire the basic needs, such as food, sanitation, and health care, rather than making people dependent on them by providing these needs through subsidised institutions as all such institutions have inefficiency problems and are more prone to corruption.
In addition, all these social sectors are inter-connected to some extent. Therefore, progress in one sector can in some way be a step towards achieving the target in another sector. Hence, a balanced policy approach focussing on all these sectors is needed, in a way leading to the progress of the entire nation as a whole.
I would like to conclude by saying that this book encompasses all the issues in great depth and in a manner which can be accessed even by a layman. Hence, it is worth a read if an individual wants to know about our nation’s Millennium Development Goals, its targets and achievements so far.