Millennium Development Goals |31 October 2013

Seychelles achieves three MDGs, on track with others

Seychelles has completely achieved three of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) while it is well on track to reach the set targets for the others.

This was revealed during the official launch of the 2013 Seychelles MDG Report at the Palais de Justice on Ile du Port on Tuesday morning, in the presence of Designated Minister and Minister for Social Affairs, Community Development and Sports Vincent Meriton, Minister for Foreign Affairs Jean-Paul Adam, members of the diplomatic corps, government officials and representatives of the private sector.

The launch included the hand-over of the report to Minister Adam by Mauritius-based United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) representative Simon Springett, whose organisation has helped Seychellois consultants Benjamin Vel and Marie-Thérèse Purvis in its writing.

Presenting a summary of the report, Mr Vel said that the MDGs have influenced the Seychelles government in policy formulation, research and the putting into place of effective measurement indicators and adequate reporting mechanisms. As a result, Seychelles has recorded general achievements such as access to primary education, high literacy rate, free basic health care, access to safe drinking water and sanitation, good housing provision and a high life expectancy of 74.2 years.

The report has identified the MDGs of Universal Primary Education, Gender Equality and Women Empowerment, and Maternal Health as achieved ones. Those on track include Eradication of Extreme Poverty and Hunger, Reduction of Child Mortality, Combat of HIV/Aids, Malaria and Other Diseases, Ensuring Environment Sustainability and the Development of Global Partnerships for Development.

It is pointed out that the goal of Universal Primary Education has been achieved through 99% or may be 100% boys and girls now completing a full course of primary schooling. As in the case of Gender Equality and Women Empowerment, he highlighted examples of more girls than boys in all education stages and a high women representation in parliament. Improvement of Maternal Health is illustrated by the reduction of maternal mortality cases to zero in 2011 and 2012, as a result of free and efficient maternal and family health care programmes such as immunisation, midwife training, contraception, postnatal clinic and parenting sessions.

As for the goals on track, in the case of Eradication of Extreme Poverty and Hunger, the targets is to by 2015 halve the proportion of people whose income is less than one dollar a day, and achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all, including women and young people.

The report however says that in some cases, the unemployed, a female, a person with little or no education, a woman with a higher number of children and surprisingly people living in fishing and farming families, are those likely to live on less than one dollar a day.

However, some poverty eradication targets have been achieved such as in the field of employment, where programmes like apprenticeship and entrepreneurial schemes as well as the participation of NGOs have alleviated the situation. Social welfare programmes, where R13.5 million were spent in welfare payment only from January to March 2012, have also helped.

The report goes on to suggest that Seychelles has not attained the Child Mortality Reduction Goal because, although the figures dropped in 2003, they slightly rose again in 2011. In the Combat of HIV/Aids, Malaria and Other Diseases, if excellent results have been recorded for malaria and tuberculosis, the target of reversing the spread of HIV and non-communicable diseases have not been achieved in spite of many on-going prevention and treatment programmes.

The Seychelles government has in the past years put much emphasis on environment protection. Moreover, most local projects which currently benefit from external funding are in the environment sector and these actions have resulted in reforestation and overall nature protection. However, the country has still not met the goal of Ensuring Environmental Sustainability as improvement has to be made in the areas of carbon dioxide emissions and consumption of ozone-depleting substances.

Finally, Seychelles has also to improve on the Development of a Global Partnership for Development, with the primary target of making available the benefits of new technologies, especially information and communication. This is the case although progress has been made, as shown by an increase in telephone lines and cellular and internet subscriptions.

The report concludes that even for the achieved MDGs, challenges remain. In education for instance, the issues of gender inequalities, special needs  children in terms of learning, behaviour and disabilities as well as training and retention of teachers have to be addressed. In general, challenges in sustaining achievements remain those of geographical isolation, the small size of the country as well as the population and the economy, our narrow resource base, human resource development issues such as training and retention of professionals and economic vulnerability caused by external shocks.