Training Report: Millennium Development Goals in the SAARC Region

Country Reports
Country Report
Maldives
By: Sharafiyya Jameel
Progress on MDG’s
Progress on MDG’s
} Achieved 5 out of 8, MDG+ country
} Unachieved goals are: Goal 3; promote gender
equality and empower women, it will face huge
obstacles in achieving Goal 7;
ensure environmental sustainability and
Goal 8
} Achieved goals show unevenness, and therefore is
volatile
} Three reports prepared 2005, 2007 and 2010
} General challenges in achieving all MDG’s:
limited skilled human resourcegeographical
isolation of its islands
provision of facilities to islands with very small
population inequality between Male’
and other islands
} Social norms and newly established democracy can
hinder progress socio-economic and structural
changes
MDG – 1: Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger
} Indicator 1A
} Population living below $1 perday
3% (1997) to 1% (2004)
} Poverty gap ratio
MRF 15 per day from 91% (1997) to 8% (2004)
} Share of poorest quintile in nation consumption 6% (1997) to 6%
(2004)
MDG 1
} Indicator 1B
} Growth of GDP per person employed 2.6(1992) to 14.6 (2006)
} Employment to population ratio 49.8 (1991) to 54 (2007)
Indicator 1C
• Prevalence of underweight children under 5 – 45% in 1997 to 17.3
(2009)
• Population below minimu level of dietry – 9 in 1991 to 7 in 2004
Challenges
} Poverty is different in Maldives context – isolation of population and lack of
services in atolls
} Labor market is dominated by expatriate workers (110 231 workers, census 2006)
} 38% of youth unemployed
} Lack of employment opportunities, mismatching of skills, rigidity of social norms,
discourage girls from working
} Inequality between Male and islands is obvious – poverty dropped from 23 to
less than 5 percent in Male’ where as it went down only from 52 to 25% in
islands (1997 to 2004) High dependence on imported food
Government efforts
• Adopt human rights based approach
• Stimulate local food production
• Provide soft loans and other financial programs, and structural facilities
• Extra focus on identifying needs of disabled and vulnerable population
• Introduction of pension and retirement scheme (2007) and universal health
cover (2009)
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