There is a significant risk that international aid priorities and funding will fall off the political agenda as governments and individuals grapple with their own domestic crises, according to a recent BBC News report. In the eight years since the Millennium Development Goals were formulated, the amount of progress has been mixed. 80% of children in developing countries are now vaccinated against measles, but 25% of them are still undernourished and underweight.
One of the major goals was to reduce by half the number of people living in absolute poverty – defined as living on less than US$1 per day – by the year 2015. Substantial progress towards this goal has been made in most countries, but not in sub-Saharan Africa. Large increases in global food prices over the past 18 months have come as a significant setback for the poverty reduction targets, as the higher prices have most affected those who are least able to pay.
The reasons why sub-Saharan Africa is failing to make sufficient progress towards the reduction of absolute poverty include long-term underinvestment in the agricultural sector, poor infrastructure, conflict, and the political process in those countries. A significant contributing factor is the lack of political will to address investment in agriculture and infrastructure, both on the part of donors and on the part of aid-receiving governments.