COMCEC Poverty Outlook 2016:
Human Development in OIC
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3. Efforts on Poverty Alleviation
In this section poverty alleviation efforts in the world with a focus on MDGs and SDGs will be
elaborated first. Afterwards, poverty alleviation efforts in the OIC Region will be summarized.
3.1. Efforts in the World 23
3.1.1. Millennium Development Goals
In 2000, the world agreed upon the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This agreement
reflect the world leaders commitment to a new global partnership to ending poverty and
hunger, improving education, gender, health and promoting sustainable development. Under
this understanding, eight goals with a deadline of 2015 were set. These goals, namely MDGs,
were:
1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
2. Achieve universal primary education
3. Promote gender equality and empower women
4. Reduce child mortality
5. Improve maternal health
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
7. Ensure environmental sustainability
8. Develop a global partnership for development
Despite its multisectoral approach, the main objective of MDGs was poverty alleviation. Goal 1
was directly, the remaining were indirectly addressing poverty. In fact, Goal 2,3,4,5,6,7, and 8
under the MDGs were priority areas that must be addressed to eliminate extreme poverty. The
aim was to make the nations to accept the MDGs as national goals and increase the coherence
and consistency of national policies and programs while trying to achieve these goals.
Under the MDGs, 21 targets and 60 indicators were officially defined to monitor the progress
of the countries. The progress during the MDG period (2000-2015) in the selected indicators is
summarized below:
Under the first goal, extreme poverty (less than $1.25 a day) declined significantly from 36
percent in 1990 to 14 per cent as of year 2015. The proportion of undernourished people in
the developing regions has fallen by almost half from 23 per cent to 13 per cent in the same
period. Under the goal 2, the primary school net enrolment rate has reached to 92 per cent in
2015, up from 81 per cent in 1990. Under goal 3, the target to eliminate gender disparity in
primary secondary and tertiary education almost fully achieved. Under goal 4, the global
under-five mortality rate has declined by more than half from 90 to 46 deaths per 1,000 live
births. Under goal 5, the maternal mortality ratio has declined from 380 deaths per 100,000
23 This section is mostly adapted from the previous work of COMCEC & IDB (2015). The authors of this report
made minimal contribution to the content.