NOTTINGHAM INTERNATIONAL MODEL UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCE 2011

STUDY GUIDE
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

CONTENTS Committee Personnel & Contact Agenda 1: The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) progress and limitations Introduction Background and Issues Agenda 2: Challenges of developing infrastructure in Africa. Introduction Background Key Issues Bibliography 02 03

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Committee Contacts Committee Presidents: Head Chair: Assistant Chairs: Contact Address: Kinner Shah Jerrick Lim Kavita Kalaichelvan and Alice Ko undp.nottsmun11@gmail.com

Agenda 1 The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) progress and limitations

Introduction The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were established by world leaders at the United Nations Millennium Summit in the year 2000, after declaring their commitment to tackling extreme poverty by 2015. The United Nations Millennium Summit was one of the largest gatherings in history, that to establish a framework upon which the MDGs will be set. The United Nations Millennium Declaration is a resolution adopted in agreement by over 150 heads of state from around the world in order to create global governance. The declaration was the ultimate outcome at the UN Millennium Summit in September 2000, which highlights that a set of fundamental values is essential which reflects the functioning of a global society. These include: freedom (from hunger, poverty and violence), equality (amongst men and women), solidarity, tolerance (of different beliefs and cultures), sustainable development and shared responsibility (global economic and social development multilaterally). Alliances in support of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs): the achievement of the MDGs is led by The Millennium Promise Alliance, the first non-governmental organization to solely commit in supporting the achievement of the MDGs by 2015. The alliance consists of a group of directors led by Jeffrey D. Sachs (Millennium Promise Co-founder and Director of the earth institute at Columbia University). The Millennium Forum also served in support as a platform, where many non-governmental organizations and other civil society actors came in cooperation with one another addressing measures and proposals in the aim to strengthen the effectiveness of the development goals. In the 2000, the former Secretary-General expressed the view that if the United Nations were to continue to play a vital role in the century ahead it would be imperative that it benefit from the imagination and engage the support of the worlds people. The combined support of various leaders and organizations resulted in all 192 members and over 23 international organizations committing to achieve the MDGs consisting of 8 goals and 18 targets by 2015. What are the Millennium Development Goals? the MDGs are eight international development agreements, which all 192 UN Member states committed to achieving by 2015. The undertaking of creating specific measurable targets linked to key indicators was to facilitate positive development growth in order to drive forwards tangible action for change. The eight international agreements reflect upon issues relating to health, education, poverty, environmental sustainability and international coordination for funding. The agreement also strongly enforces the idea of financial and personnel support of developed nations to developing nations.
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Moreover, these goals serve as specific benchmarks to accurately measure the progress made which can be assessed using over 60 indicators including the unemployment rate, literacy rate, infant mortality rate, rate including the proportion of people living below the $1 a day and many others. Based upon measuring the progress of countries outlined by the key objectives and targets set in the MDGs, countries are able to implement individual policies needed to achieve these goals adjusted to individual countrys needs. It is forecasted that after achieving the targets, these goals will have reduced global poverty by half as stated in MDG1, MDG4 and MDG 5. Background After the end of the Cold War, it is argued that the world entered a new era dominated by the forces of liberalism and capitalism that would be responsible to stimulate growth and development. On that note, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) was the consensus declared by world leaders to end poverty and the serious challenges faced by the global developing society as a whole. As clearly stated in the UNDP Human development report 2005, the greatest challenge that the international community faces, arguably, is the challenge of meeting the targets set in the MDGs by deadline 2015. In a review conducted by Go, Harmsen & Timmer (2010), they argue that low-income countries particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, did relatively well during the recent global economic crisis, and developing countries are now recovering better than expected. However, as seen on Box 1 and chart 1, the progress on the Millennium Development Goals will be slow for many years. The progress made in economic growth and poverty reduction before the financial crisis will not be matched for some time. Deviations in MDG progress from the precrisis trends may prolong until approximately 2020, five years after the 2015 target date for achieving the goals.

International financial institutions and the international community have responded quickly and strongly to the crisis, however, need to do more to help developing countries regain momentum towards achieving the MDGs by the target date. Overall progress on poverty reduction was particularly strong, especially in Africa during the precrisis period. Human development indicators improved significantly before 2008, due to the rapid acceleration of economic growth in many developing nation states after the early 1990s. Other than poverty, improvement was shown in primary education, gender parity ratios in primary and secondary education, and reliable access to safe and clean water. However, the outcome is not as positive in answer, in relation to the other MDGs particularly those with health targets. Prospects are looking grim for the MDGs relating to health, such as the infant mortality. For example, between 1990 and 2008, the under-5 mortality rate in developing countries declined from 101 deaths for every 1000 live births to 73, showing notable progress, but not significant enough to meet the MDG 4 of reducing under-5 mortality by two thirds. Moreover, in 2008, 9 million children died from preventable diseases, compared with 13 million deaths in 1990. Currently, SubSaharan Africa has 20 percent of the worlds children classified under the age 5 but caters for 50 percent of all child deaths. Maternal health is the least likely of the MDGs to meet the 2015 target. Around 10,000 women die every week from treatable complications of pregnancy and childbirth. Although significant progress has been seen since the 1990s, the rate at
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which this target is being achieved is rather slow. Maternal deaths fell from 422 for every 100,000 live births in 1980 to 320 in 1990 and finally to 251 in 2008 (Finance & Development, 2010). In Sub-Saharan Africa, the central and eastern regions have shown some improvement since 1990, but the southern and western regions depressed because of the number of pregnant women who died from HIV infection. The recent food crisis has also led to a complication in the progress on fighting malnutrition and hunger. Child malnutrition accounts for more than a third of the disease burden of children under 5 years of age. Moreover, malnutrition during pregnancy accounts for more than 20 percent maternal mortality. The proportion of children under 5 who are underweight in developing countries declined from 33 percent in 1990 to 26 percent in 2006, much slower than is needed to halve malnutrition by 2015. Progress, according to the OECD, has been slowest in Sub-Saharan Africa. The region remains most affected, accounting for more than two-thirds of all people living with HIV and for nearly three-fourths of AIDS-related deaths in 2008. In 2006, the widespread presence of tuberculosis killed around 1.8 million people in the region of SubSaharan Africa. Ultimately, achieving the MDGs depends on the policy actions undertaken by developing countries and their governments, firms and organizations. Economic growth needs to be highlighted, whilst significant macroeconomic policies need to brought back in order to create stable and sustainable growth.

Agenda 2 Challenges of developing infrastructure in Africa

Introduction After the World War II, nearly every country in Africa was subject to colonial administration. This newly autonomous Africa faces massive challenges which include poverty, illness, desertification, malnutrition and regional conflict. While the proportion of Africans living on less than US$1.25 a day fell from 58 percent in 1996 to 50 percent in the first quarter of 2009, much remains to be done to alleviate poverty and promote growth. UNDP is the United Nations' global development network, an organization advocating for change and connecting countries to knowledge, experience and resources to help people build a better life. 1 UNDPs focus is helping countries build and share solutions to the challenges of: a. Democratic Governance b. Poverty Reduction C. Crisis Prevention and Recovery d. Environment and Energy e. HIV/AIDS UNDP helps developing countries attract and use aid effectively. Furthermore, UNDP encourages the protection of human rights, capacity development and the empowerment of women. Crisis prevention and recovery is essential to development and is a cornerstone of the work of UNDP. Disasters and violent conflicts are among the two greatest threats to progress in human development in the 21st century. Across Africa, infrastructure contributed 99 basis points to per capita economic growth from 1990 to 2005, compared with 68 basis points for other structural policies (Calderon 2008). 2

Background Infrastructure not only contributes to economic growth but also an important input to human development. It is to be identified that infrastructure is a key ingredient for achieving all the Millennium Development Goals. Safe and convenient water supplies save time and arrest the spread of serious diseases including diarrhea (leading cause of infant mortality and malnutrition). Electricity powers health and education services and boosts the productivity of small businesses. Road networks provide links to global and local markets and ICTs democratize access to information and reduce transport costs by allowing people to conduct transactions remotely.3 Africas infrastructure lags well behind that of other developing countries (Yepes,
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http://www.beta.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/operations/about_us.html http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTAFRICA/Resources/aicd_overview_english_no-embargo.pdf 3 http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTAFRICA/Resources/aicd_overview_english_no-embargo.pdf

Pierce, and Foster 2008). The photo below shows the percentage of urban population in this continent.

Key Issues 1. Africas difficult economic geography presents a challenge for infrastructure development Relative to other continents, Africa is characterized by low overall population density (36 people per square kilometer) and low rates of urbanization (35%). Africas atomized nationstates are reflected in the regions fragmentary infrastructure networks. Sub-Saharan Africa comprises 48 nation-states, many of which are very small.
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Few cross-border inter-connectors exist to support regional power exchange, even though many countries are too small to produce power economically on their own. A further complication is that the continent experiences particularly high hydrological variability, with huge swings in in precipitation across areas, seasons, and time which climate change is likely to exacerbate. 4 This can be demonstrated by Horn of Africa crisis. After consecutive seasons of inadequate rainfall, countries in the Horn of Africa are facing the worst drought in 60 years, leading to the largest food crisis in 20 years and the worlds first famine of this century. 2. Africas infrastructure services are twice as expensive as elsewhere Africas infrastructure networks deficient in coverage, but the price of the services provided is also exceptionally high by global standards (refer the table below). Furthermore, power provides the clearest example of infrastructure with costs genuinely higher in Africa than elsewhere. Many smaller countries have national power system below 500 megawatt threshold and therefore often rely on small diesel generation that can cost up to $0.35 per kilowatt-hour to run, about twice the costs faced by larger countries typically with coal- or hydropower-based system. 5 Power tariffs in most parts of the developing world fall in the ranges of US$0.04 to US$0.08 per kilowatt-hour. However, in Sub-Saharan Africa, the
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http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTAFRICA/Resources/aicd_overview_english_no-embargo.pdf http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTAFRICA/Resources/aicd_overview_english_no-embargo.pdf

average tariff is US$0.13 per kilowatt-hour. Given poor reliability, many firms operate their own diesel generators at two to three times the cost. 6

3. Power is Africas largest infrastructure challenge Whether measure in generation capacity, electricity consumption, or security or supply Africas power infrastructure delivers only a fraction of the service found elsewhere in the developing world. The 48 Sub-Saharan Africa countries (with 800 million people) generate roughly the same power as Spain (with 45 million people). More than 30 African countries experience power shortages and regular interruptions to service. African manufacturing enterprises experience power outages on average 56 days per year. As a result, firms lose 6 percent of sales revenues; in the informal sector where back-up generation is limited; loses can be as high as 20 percent. 7 It is to be noted that energy is central to sustainable development and poverty reduction efforts. It affects all aspects of development. None of the MDGs can be met without major improvement in the quality and quantity of energy services in developing countries.8 The photo below demonstrates the underlying causes of power supply crisis in this continent.

http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/AFRICAEXT/EXTAFRREGTOPENERGY/0,,menuPK:71733 2~pagePK:51065911~piPK:64171006~theSitePK:717306,00.html
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http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/AFRICAEXT/EXTAFRREGTOPENERGY/0,,menuPK:71733 2~pagePK:51065911~piPK:64171006~theSitePK:717306,00.html 8 http://www.undp.org/energy/

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Bibliography Agenda 1 Arbache, J., D. Go, and V. Korman, forthcoming, Does Growth Volatility Matter for Development Outcomes? An Empirical Investigation Using Global Data, background paper for Global Monitoring Report 2010 (Washington: World Bank). Hogan, M., K. Foreman, M. Naghavi, S. Ahn, M. Wang, S. Makela, A. Lopez, R. Lozano, and C. What are the Millennium Development Goals: Goals and targets. Available at: http://www.undp.org/mdg/basics.shtml Murray, 2010, Maternal Mortality for 181 Countries, 19802008: A Systematic Analysis of Progress towards Millennium Development Goal 5, The Lancet, Vol. 375, No. 9726, pp. 160923. International Development Association, and International Monetary Fund, 2009, Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative and Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI): Status of Implementation, September 15 (Washington: World Bank and IMF). International Monetary Fund (IMF), 2010, World Economic Outlook (Washington, April). Sachs, J. 2010. Millennium Development Goals in an age of fear and loathing. Guardian: 23rd September 2010. Available at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/globaldevelopment/2010/sep/23/millennium-development-goals-fear-loathing The OECD and the Millennium Development Goals. Available at: http://www.oecd.org/document/37/0,3746,en_2649_33721_34087845_1_1_1_1,00.html UNICEF, 2007, Progress for Children: A World Fit for Children Statistical Review, No. 6 (New York). World Bank, and International Monetary Fund, 2010, Global Monitoring Report 2010: The MDGs after the Crisis (Washington: World Bank and IMF). Agenda 2 http://www.beta.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/operations/about_us.html http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTAFRICA/Resources/aicd_overview_english_noembargo.pdf http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/AFRICAEXT/EXTAFRREGTOPENERG Y/0,,menuPK:717332~pagePK:51065911~piPK:64171006~theSitePK:717306,00.html http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/AFRICAEXT/EXTAFRREGTOPENERG Y/0,,menuPK:717332~pagePK:51065911~piPK:64171006~theSitePK:717306,00.html http://www.undp.org/energy/

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