The Sunday Times Economic Analysis

Consultants from the UN, USAID, World Bank and other international organisations continuously evaluate the progress of countries in the achievement of their Millennium Development Goals (MDG).

Although Sri Lanka is in a good position having attained most of its development goals even before they were set, these agencies visit the country on a somewhat regular basis partly to ensure that the objective of the government to achieve progressively better targets is on track, and partly because donors want to ensure that their funds are expended in a cost-effective manner. No doubt there are also midterm adjustments in the strategies adopted.

Although Sri Lanka prides herself on her social development being reasonably high, we are still lower down in the international ladder of achievement, in terms of human development indicators.

Our figure in the Human Development Index (HDI) is 0.74, which indicates that we have achieved about 74 percent of the level of the best country.

We are in the 96th position in the HDI along with 177 countries. While we are better off than some neighbouring Asian countries, overall internationally our achievements have not been too impressive. Nevertheless for our levels of economic achievement, measured in terms such as per capita income, our social attainments are relatively better. Although overall statistics in literacy, education and health are good, there are serious shortfalls in several regions of the country.

Progress made at a national level masks, the realties of poverty and social underdevelopment in Sri Lanka.If national attainments are to be improved, significant gains can only be made by a focus on regional disparities. The overall concern is whether these various missions confine their work to excellent academic discussions or practical policy issues, especially the allocation of resources and capacity to implement.

There is a special need to develop institutional structures that ensure and sustain progressive achievements in social development. It is essential that specific goals to be achieved are set . These goals must be established at sub national levels.

For instance, why not indicate specific goals for institutional development towards achieving MDGs. For example an improved target of having schools in nearby locations, so that no child is deprived of primary education owing to the lack of easy access would assist education in remote areas. Similarly there is a need to establish health centres and hospitals in close proximity.

What about goals of a doctor? Such as a population ratio that ensures at least basic adequacy of medical services, especially maternal and postnatal care. This would be an extension of the application of sub-national goals.

Sub-national goals are indeed essential to make the MDGs meaningful to the people left behind. The progress at a national level should be achieved by regional disparities being reduced. Therefore such sub national goals should be set and progress in their achievement monitored.

The relationship between the attainment of the MDGs and hunger and poverty is well recognised. Yet it must be clear that the poverty-hunger link is not uni-dimensional. Poverty is the key factor affecting hunger and in turn hunger debilitates the population and affects the capacity for educational and health improvements and therefore income earning. It is a vicious cycle that can and must be broken.

While economic growth alone will not achieve the MDGs, there should be greater emphasis on the need to ensure growth through the adoption of policies that directly improve the incomes and the quality of life of the rural poor and people in remote areas. The East Asian experience illustrates how rapid growth with some redistributive policies, reduced poverty and helped improve social development. The South Asian experience on the other hand, is illustrative of both inadequate growth to reduce poverty and a lack of appropriate policies to induce growth towards the poor and for social development goals. The economic growth strategy should focus on rural infrastructure development and adopt pro-poor policies such as agrarian reforms, support for rural industry and rural infrastructure development.

With respect to the achievement of gender equality two thrusts are required. One is advocacy of the concept of gender equality to recognise that gender equality is an issue of human dignity.

It is crucially important to convey the message that countries cannot achieve their full economic and social development potential unless women play their vital roles in caring for children, educating them and ensuring their health and nutrition.

There is clear evidence that gender equality, especially gender equality in education, is a vital lever for child development and social development.

For instance, the advances made in Sri Lanka’s social development were due to gender equality, especially in terms of education the basis for further improvements in education and health, while very specific goals for girl enrolment require to be established.

Towards achieving goals of literacy and education two issues should be noted. First the attempts should be made to go beyond literacy, primary education and schooling.

This is important as many countries like Sri Lanka no longer have employment opportunities for those with literacy and primary education. Therefore in order for the poor to attain such goals as rising above poverty, educational opportunities like learning foreign languages, skill development and information technology are needed.

The lack of such facilities in remote areas is a reason for such high rates of unemployment, low income and poverty that defy the achievement of the range of MDGs. The second issue relates to the quality of education. Having schools of very low quality would not achieve the MDGs. Qualitative goals should be set so that quantitative goal realisation would not be misleading.

The use of social capital is a very important strategy for achieving the MDGs. The use of social capital especially for improvement of rural infrastructure, improvements in the quality of education and in enhancing gender equality could be significant.

In many areas of social development, social capital could play an even more significant role than governments and also contribute to improving the efficiency of state investments in education and health in particular. The limitations in the use of social capital have been due to the lack of organisation and direction for the mobilisation of social capital.

It is vital for Sri Lanka to look towards the attainment of higher levels of literacy, education and health indicators. We must not be satisfied and lulled into complacency by the fact that we are better off than our neighbours. The fact is that we are well below what we should achieve, and the elimination of regional disparities is vital to achieve these.