By Shu'aibu Adamu
Converting Africa's impressive economic performance over the past decade into greater gains in the MDGs has remained a primary challenge for Africa, according to the MDGs 2013 report.
The report, released by the African Union Commission (AUC) Headquarters in Addis Ababa, on Sunday said that the 2012 MDGs rating had placed 15 African countries ahead of the 20 countries that made the greatest progress globally.
The report, tagged "The MDG Report 2013: Assessing Progress in Africa toward the Millennium Development Goals'' said that countries such as Benin Republic, Egypt, Ethiopia, The Gambia, Malawi and Rwanda had made impressive progress on a number of goals and targets.
It, however, said that "while Africa is the world's second fastest growing region, its rate of poverty reduction is insufficient to reach the target of halving extreme poverty by 2015''.
The progress report, prepared by the AUC, UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the African Development Bank Group (AfDB), was launched as part of the year-long celebration of OAU-AU golden jubilee.
On food security, the report provided insights into how food security would impact on other MDGs, particularly health-related goals and how concerted efforts to improve agriculture, food distribution and nutrition would fast-track progress toward achieving other MDGs.
The report revealed that climate-related shocks, induced by extreme weather conditions, had destroyed livelihoods and worsened Africa's food insecurity, resulting in a high incidence of underweight children, widespread hunger and poor dietary consumption patterns.
With fewer than 1,000 days to the 2015 MDGs target date, the report took stock of Africa's overall performance in attaining the MDGs and identified the best performing countries via indicators, based on progress relative to each country's initial conditions.
The report said that countries continued to learn from one another "as the countries that have sustained, equitable growth, with political stability and human development-oriented policies, are doing well in most of the goals''.
The report came up with its results after assessing four goals on track and another four off-track in the best performing African countries.
It said that MDG 2, aimed at achieving universal primary education; MDG 3, aimed at promoting gender equality and empowering women; MDG 6, aimed at combating HIV/AIDS, TB, malaria and other diseases; and MDG 8, aimed at forging global partnership for development were on track in many African nations. NAN
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