The Millennium Development Goals in Central Africa: Are they all Achievable?

Abstract

In September 2000, world leaders met in New York to adopt the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The MDGs embody a set of purposes with quantified targets and deadlines, which aim to alleviate extreme poverty in the world. MDGs are considered as global public goods because of their "cross-borderliness", their indivisibility as well as their distributive effects. Of the eight MDGs, the reduction of extreme poverty is the goal with the greatest multiplier effect on the others as its analytical framework is based on both an absolute approach and a human development component. In Central Africa, an evaluation of the progress achieved on the MDGs shows that although there is significant progress with increasing primary and secondary education for both genders, considerable effort must be made to improve the public health sector, food self-sufficiency, and poverty reduction. Proposals made to speed up the degree of achievement of the MDGs in Central Africa are targeted towards improving the global framework of economic governance and strengthening of macroeconomic stability. The establishment in Central African countries of the "crony capitalism" economic model could favor the development of the private sector considered as the mainstay of economic growth in these countries.