Sustainable Development Goals Blog#8

LIBERIA

             Liberia is located on the west African coast. Bordered by the Atlantic Ocean along its entire diagonal southwest coastline of 579 kilometers, Liberia borders Sierra Leone to the northwest, Guinea to the north. The climate of Liberia is covered with tropical rain forest, and the country's terrain ranges from coastal plains to plateau to low mountains. Liberia's climate is tropical.( Africa UNDP,2019)

Is Poverty an issue in Liberia?

Poverty is considered one of the main issues in Liberia. Liberia’s population consists mainly of smallholder farmers that struggle to produce enough to feed their families. The issue of the farmers reduction has led to poverty in Liberia reaching 68 percent and 35 percent of the population being malnourished.

Civil wars have contributed to the over 250,000 Liberian orphans who frequently suffer from malnutrition and are abandoned.

 Liberia’s education and health systems are both in need of great improvement. The lack of health care access often leads to high fatality rates among those with treatable or preventable diseases. The education goes, only half of Liberians are literate, and many Liberian children are kept out of school in order to help on their families’ farms.(UNICEF, Liberia,2019) 

US Role in Liberia 

Eradicating poverty in all its forms remains one of the greatest challenges facing humanity specially in Africa .The number of people living in extreme poverty dropped by more than half between 1990 and 2015  from 1.9 billion to 836 million – too many are still struggling for the most basic human needs. (UN,2019)

The focus of USAID in combating poverty in Liberia is collaborating with the Liberian government to help rebuild the infrastructure and revitalize mining and other utilization of natural resources in the country. Government strategies focus on stimulating the private sector by providing access to credit and infrastructure to Liberians.

Resources in Liberia

One of the main characteristics in Liberia is the landscape and resources available to make it a prosperous country.  The infrastructure can be rebuilt, and resources can be utilized to their full potential when the government is taking place.

 For this reason, one of the pillars of USAID’s action in Liberia is strengthening Democracy and Governance. Once infrastructure is re-built, and this can happen rapidly with the help of USAID, the resources flowing out of Liberia will benefit the global economy and western investment in the country.

In Liberia, UNDP supported the government to develop a Road map for the domestication of the 2030 Agenda and the African Union Agenda 2063 into the country’s next national development plan. The Road map outlines the key steps to translate the SDGs and Agenda 2063 into plans, policies and programs taking into consideration the fact that Liberia.(UNDP,2019)

The Sustainable Development Goals in Liberia and 

Implementation 

Ending poverty in all its forms everywhere is the primary focus of goal one. Despite it remains a major challenge, poverty eradication is the first Sustainable Development Goals. Statistics shows that over 800 million people are still living on less than 1.25 a day without access to basic services.

Africa, the world's poorest continent, has the highest population growth rate from 221 million in 1950 to 1 billion in 2009 with a high number of people living in poverty. In Sub-Sahara Africa, 40% of people live in absolute poverty. Reports suggest that the rate of poverty in Africa might increase due to food insecurity, conflict and climate change.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aims to end poverty everywhere on the globe by 2030.In order to implement the SDGs programs the way to achieve the goal involves increasing access to basic services, improving the living conditions of those in vulnerable situations, addressing climate change to develop the quality of life . (SDGs,2019)

Agencies Taking Actions

*United Nations Development Programs (UNDP)

*United Nations Children Funds (UNICEF)

*World Bank (WB)

*Food Agriculture Organization (FAO)

*African Development Bank (AfDB)

*United Nations Polulation Fund (UNFPA)

All these agencies have made a huge  difference by taking actions in whole entire world not just in Africa ,but  to most of the developing countries to make difference and change for better quality of life to the populations. 

References

United Nations in Liberia

        http://lr.one.un.org/content/unct/liberia/en/home/sdg/end-poverty.html

https://www.africa.undp.org/content/rba/en/home/sustainable-development-goals.html.

United Nations International Children’s Emergency Funds

     https://www.unicef.org/liberia/what-we-do

BLOG#7 Sustainable Development Goals

Madagascar

Madagascar, a country in southern Africa located in the Indian Ocean, east of Mozambique, is the fifth largest island in the world, with a land mass of 587,000 km2 and 25.6 million inhabitants. Despite having considerable natural resources, Madagascar has among the highest poverty rates in the world. (world bank,2019).

Madagascar is among the poorest countries in the world with 75% of the population living on less than $1.90 per day (in purchasing power parity). The country’s human capital index ranking is  among the lowest worldwide and Madagascar has the world’s fourth highest rate of chronic malnutrition, with almost one child in two under five years of age suffering from stunting.(world bank,2019).

 An estimated 1.4 million children dropped out of primary school in 2012.Living conditions remain difficult for most of the population, with a low rate of access to electricity (13%) in particular. Madagascar is one of the African countries most severely affected by climate change impacts and experiences an average of 3 cyclones per year. (world bank,2019).

Is Poverty an Issue ?

Poverty is considered one of the biggest issues in the country and the government of Madagascar has seized the lessons and worked very hard to decrease the ratio of poverty in the country of Madagascar, by investing the country resources such as the agriculture.

                                                                     

                                                                               

 Rice occupies the largest share of total crop average. Many varieties of dry, wet, and irrigated rice are grown in the central plateau, dry rice is also grown in the eastern forests and wet rice in the lower river valleys and along the estuaries, mainly by populations who migrated from overpopulated parts of the plateau. Costly imports are still required.

Madagascar is one of the countries that did not reach the MDGs by the end of 2015. The reduction of poverty by half compared to 1990, the main MDG objectives and targets have not been achieved. Structural problems and especially the interference and recurrence of socio-political crises were partly responsible for the situation. The political crises were partly responsible for the situation.

 The government's issues, especially during the crisis period, poor access to social services, declining development financing and the low level and non-inclusive nature of growth have not improved the living conditions of the population. population and development prospects, including MDG indicators. Madagascar thus continues to be confronted with the unfinished agenda of the MDGs. Lessons learned from their implementation are useful for the SDG process.

According to United Nations Sustainable Development Programs, the government of Madagascar has seized the lessons and works to make the implementation of the MDGs and the 2030 Agenda process as an opportunity to address these challenges and seize opportunities for sustainable development in Madagascar.The issue of poverty been addressed by UN sustainable and development goals of 2030 Agenda, the launch of the process has already made it possible to have elements of appreciation of good national ownership and prioritization of the SDGs, taking into account all the dimensions of sustainable development in the region.

Call for Action

planning and management of development policies and programs (at national and regional levels), strengthening of domestic resource mobilization and coordination of interventions by all the levels and sections in the country.The establishment of an institutional system adapted and supported by a strong political commitment, a good mobilization of domestic resources and their allocation towards the sectors having an accelerating effect for the poverty reduction and the human development, in particular for the vulnerable populations, as well as the monitoring and evaluation system, have been important challenges that will have to be addressed in the context of the 2030 Agenda

The Voluntary Report recalls  along with donations have lessons learned from the implementation of the MDG agenda, presents the SDG process, its preliminary results, the efforts to overcome the challenges and opportunities, the next steps  perspectives of the SDG process and looking forewords to change the quality of life in the country.

References:-

United Nations,un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/2019

     UNICEF,https://www.unicef.org/madagascar/reviewed, November/2019.

          worldbank.org/en/country/madagascar/overview/2019.