“To promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom”. This is one of the four objectives of  the Charter of the United Nations signed on 26 June 1945 at San Francisco, and the signatory states agreed, “to employ international machinery for the promotion of economic and social advancement of all peoples” in order to achieve this objective.

Any assessment of the performance of the United Nations during the 68 years of its existence, especially with regard to the three other objectives highlighted in the Preamble to the Charter, namely those of preventing war, promoting fundamental human rights and instilling observance of international law among nations, is bound to be uneven.  There were some successes and some dismal failures.  However, the activities of the United Nations and its agencies aimed at improving the lives of millions of people in the under-developed and least developed countries deserve recognition and a positive assessment.

The United Nations Millennium Summit, held in New York on 6 – 8 September 2000, signalled an unprecedented effort to meet the needs of the world's poorest people. Its Millennium Declaration was adopted by all the 189 states then members of the United Nations, 147 of which were directly represented by their Heads of Government intending to extend their political weight to the new millennium United Nations development agenda.  The Declaration embodies eight specific commitments, known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The MDGs set clearly identifiable and quantifiable targets to be achieved by 2015. They aim to reduce extreme poverty and hunger, achieve universal primary education, promote gender equality and the empowerment of women, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other communicable diseases, ensure environmental sustainability, and develop a global partnership for development.

The MDGs have received much more attention than previous United Nations development declarations. Their focus on the preventable suffering of millions has united governments, international institutions, business corporations and NGOs around their objectives.  The United Nations sought to keep the momentum by holding successive events to renew these commitments and monitor progress, such as the 2005 World Summit, the 2008 High Level event on MDGs, and the 2010 Summit on MDGs.  Another special event hosted by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon on 23 September 2013, on the fringe of the 68th session of the United Nations General Assembly, encourages all stakeholders to identify the areas where action is most needed and to scale-up their commitments.

The overall assessment coming from United Nations agencies and Aid agencies operating in the world's poorest regions, is that the MDGs have made a huge difference in people’s lives, especially in sub-Saharan Africa.  However, several unfortunate events with global repercussions since their adoption in 2000, among them 9/11 and the subsequent war on terror, the global economic and financial crisis of 2008, and the Euro zone turmoil, have taken their toll on overseas development aid provided by major donor countries, and led to difficult political and security conditions in various developing countries for the implementation of MDG projects.

The United Nations Millennium Development Goals report for 2013, gives a detailed, goal by goal, analysis of the progress achieved, and assesses whether the goals are likely to be met. What follows is a very sketchy overview of this assessment.

Goal 1: reducing by half the number of people in extreme poverty (people living on less than $1.25 a day). This goal has been reached; however, 1.2 billion people still live in extreme poverty, and one in eight people still goes to bed hungry. Moreover, the number of people uprooted by conflict or persecution is at its highest level in 18 years.

Goal 2: achieving universal primary education. The number of primary school age children out of school went down from 102 million in the year 2000 to 57 million in the year 2011. It will be difficult to achieve full attendance rate by 2015. 

Goal 3: promoting gender equality and empowering women.  Only 2 out of 130 developing countries have achieved gender parity at all levels of education, and in all developing countries women tend to hold less secure jobs than men with fewer social benefits.

Goal 4: reducing child mortality by two-thirds between 1990 and 2015. Child mortality rate has been reduced by 41% since 1990; however, 6.9 million children under age five still die every year, mostly of preventable diseases.

Goal 5: reducing by three-quarters between 1990 and 2015 the maternal mortality ratio, and achieving by 2015 universal access to reproductive health. Maternal mortality has fallen but is still far short from the MDG target, and only half of pregnant women in developing countries receive the amount of recommended care.

Goal 6: combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases. Information campaigns have led to a decline in the incidence of HIV/AIDS, but 2.6 million people still get infected each year. With regard to malaria, it is estimated that more than 1.1 million deaths from malaria have been prevented since 2000 following the mass distribution of anti-malaria bed nets.

Goal 7: ensure environmental sustainability. The failure in meeting this target is worrying, especially since most governments have failed to integrate the principles of sustainable development into their national policies and reverse the loss of environmental resources

Goal 8: developing a global partnership for development.  The partnership is intended to generate more official development assistance, and to lead to new measures in support of exports from developing countries and the transfer of new technologies. Official development assistance in 2012 stood at 126 billion, a 4% drop in real terms from 2011, while free access has so far been granted to 83% of exports from the least developed countries. The transfer of technology has also been slow.  In the developing world only 31 % of the population has access to the internet compared to 77% elsewhere.

It is unlikely that the quantifiable targets of the MDGs will be met by 2015.  However, this is not the most worrying shortcoming the United Nations should seek to redress. For instance, much more should be done to change attitudes to development in both the donor and the recipient countries. National ownership by developing countries is still weak and development assistance often follows a donor-led agenda with little attention to the local context. A more serious shortcoming is that the MDGs overlook crucial dimensions of development, such as climate change, human rights, good governance and security.

The European Union and its member states are committed to the success of the MDGs. Together they provide more than half of all development aid.  The European Commission alone accounts for 13% of total aid flows through programmes supporting the MDGs, while the member states stand committed to respect their undertaking to raise collectively their official development aid to 0.7% of GNI by 2015. 

Malta, in line with the arrangements for the new member states, in 2004 committed itself to increase its official development assistance to 0.33% by 2015.  It seems that Malta is lagging behind on this commitment. In 2011, Malta’s aid to developing countries amounted to 0.25% of its GNI, and it later transpired that 28% of this aid was spent by government on asylum seekers. On the other hand the Maltese population is known for its generosity in replying to appeals for funds from religious and other missions working in disaster stricken areas and other severely disadvantaged regions.  NGOs who are calling on the government for more transparency, more coordination and better management of Malta’s development contribution should be supported.

Tarcisio Zammit is a former Ambassador to Belgium and Malta’s representative to the EU Political and Security Committee