The 8 Millennial

Developmental Goals
What are the 8 Millennial Developmental
Goals
In the year 2000,189 countries made a
commitment to insure worldwide economic and
social development, human dignity and equity.
They all agreed to achieve 8 goals by 2015.
The following slides explain each goal and how the
countries of East Timor and Liberia are doing in
respects to meeting these goals.
1) Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger
Goal:
Halve the proportion of people whose income is less than one
dollar a day between 1990 and 2015.
Halve the proportion of people who suffer from hunger between
1990 and 2015.

Current:
Due to the major political shifts and conflicts East Timor has been
through it has been difficult to achieve some goals. Poverty being one of
them. From 2001 to 2007, poverty actually rose from 36% to 49.9%. But
since 2007 it has been falling, 2007-2009 from 49.9% to 41%.
They are not on track to meet their goals by 2015.
In Liberia, poverty has been on the decline, but it has been slow. They
are not on target to meet their 2015 goal, but at least the percentage of
families living on under one dollar a day is only 63.8%.
2) Achieve Universal Primary Education
Goal:
By 2015, ensure that boys and girls everywhere, will be able to
complete a full course of primary schooling.
Current:
Enrollment of students increased from 65.6% in 2007 to 97.1% in
2011. But it has fallen to 91.9% in 2013. So far based on current
trends East Timor is not on track to achieve 100% primary
enrollment by 2015.
In Liberia, education is being made available to more and more.
The percentage of children in primary school is increasing, but not
rapidly enough to meet the 2015 goal.


3) Promote Gender Equality and Empower
Woman
Goal:
Eliminate Gender disparity in primary and secondary education by
2015 and in all levels of education no later than 2015
Current:
In primary schools there is slightly more boys than girls, but
gender equality is improving. Girl to boy ratio increased .02%
between 2007 and 2012. This is great improvement, but it is still
not a fast enough increase to reach the MDG by 2015.
In Liberia, secondary education is very limited and not very many
make it that far. Only 19% of men and 8% of women finish
secondary school which is far from where they want to be in 2015.
4) Reduce Child Mortality
Goal:
Reduce child mortality by two thirds by 2015.
Current:
East Timor has done significantly well with this MDG. Under five
mortality decreased from 125 to 64 per 1000 live births between
2001 and 2009. The MDG for East Timor was to get it below 96 and
so they have already achieved this goal significantly.
For Liberia, the goal set for them was to have the young child
mortality rate under five, which from the beginning presented a
very tough task. Liberia is no where close to achieving this goal
due to lack of hospitals and weak infrastructure. On the plus side
though they have added 200 health facilities to the country from
2006-2009.
5) Improve Maternal Health
Goal:
Reduce maternal mortality ratio by three quarters by 2015.
Achieve universal access to reproductive health by 2015.
Current:
From 2001 to 2010 maternal mortality fell from 660 to 557 per
100,000. This number is very high compared to other countries
and based on this trend it is unlikely that they will not achieve 252
as their MDG by 2015.
Liberians do not use contraceptives and as such many young
women give birth. There is a major correlation between the
health of rural girls and urban girls giving birth, and the health of
the educated girls versus the uneducated girls. The current
maternal mortality rate is 770 per 100,000 births, which is still far
from the goal.
6) Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Other
Diseases
Goal:
By 2015 have halted and begun to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS.

Have malaria and other diseases halted by 2015 and begun to
reverse.
Current:
The first case of HIV/AIDS occurred in 2003. Since then it has increased to 426
people. Even though this number is low, it has been increasing.
Comprehensive knowledge on HIV/AIDS has increased from 3% to 37.4%. Based
on this trend though it is unlikely that they will meet their MDG goal of 80% by
2015.
Malaria has always been a risk but from 2001 to 2013 the number of cases fell
from 113 to 5.3 cases per 1,000. East Timor has achieved its MDG target for 45
per 1000 incidence of Malaria.
Liberia is actually a country with a fairly low percentage of citizens affected by
HIV/AIDS. It has not been completely halted, but only 1.5% of the people in
Liberia have it, which is not bad for the African continent. Liberia's main focus
of disease is towards Malaria and Tuberculosis.
7) Ensure Environmental Stability
Goal:
By 2015, halve the proportion of people without sustainable
access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation.
Reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable
access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation
Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country
policies and programmes; reverse loss of environmental resources.
Achieve significant improvement in lives of at least 100 million
slum dwellers, by 2020.
Current:
Forests provide cooking fuel for 90% of the population, with this it hard to maintain the
forests. Forest cover decreased from 51% to 50% between 2001 and 2009. This makes it
unlikely for them to achieve 55% land covered by forests by 2015.
From 2001 to 2009 the proportion of people that use improved drinking water increased from
48% to 69%. However based on this it seems unlikely that they will achieve 78% by 2015.
The proportion of people using an improved sanitation facility has increased from 31% to 49%
between 2001 and 2009. This percentage fell though to 39% in 2011 due to a change in the
definition of what constitutes improved sanitation. Based on this, they are unlikely to achieve
the MDG target of 60% by 2015.
Liberia covers 43% of the Upper Guinea Forest which provides their significant source of coal
and lumber. Their deforestation rate is 0.6% which needs to be slowed further. Currently 44%
have access to sanitary water, and 75% have access to improved sanitation.

8) A Global Partnership for Development
Goal:
Develop and implement strategies for decent work for youth with
help of other developing countries.
Make available new technologies especially communications and
information with help of the private sector
Deal comprehensively with the debt problems of developing
countries
Address the special needs of landlocked developing countries and
small island developing States
Current:
East Timor has received significant developmental assistance since 2005 to finance
development programs. In 2011 this peaked $257 million per annum but then declined to $223
million. This though still shown a stable commitment though to East Timor from development
partners.
Access to new Technologies is increasing with now almost half the population having access to
mobile phones. And more extensive service coverage for both telephony and 3G data has now
reached 94% of the population. This, allied to improve electricity provision, will likely lead to
further adoption of new technologies in the near future.
Liberia is not doing well with this goal. They are still in the mind frame of helping themselves
get well before helping others in their need. The major focus goal for them is to first get
running water for the entire country before trying to do too much for other countries.
They want more people to have accessibilty to drugs to help with disease and the have more
of their people using cellphones. Only 20% of Liberians have phones at the moment.

Comparison
With comparing both East Timor and Liberia, it seems that East
Timor is closer to achieving its goals than Liberia. The only goals
that Liberia are doing better on are their goal on HIV/AIDS and
Forestation. They have a very low percentage of people who have
aids compared to East Timor and their deforestation rate is a lot
lower too. That being said Liberia need a lot of work to reach
their goals.

Works Cited
Information on the 8 MDG found at:
http://www.tl.undp.org/content/dam/timorleste/docs/library/M
DGReport2009Englishv.1.pdf
Information on the current reports of achieving the 8 MDG found
at:
https://www.mof.gov.tl/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/2Printer-
FINALMDGs-RPT-20140908.pdf