Middle East / North Africa and the Millennium Development Goals ...

Middle East / North Africa and the Millennium Development Goals
The priorities set by the German government for its DC with the MENA
region include above all two sectors: ‘economic reform and market systems
development’ (“WiRAM”), and ‘drinking water, water management,
and sewage/waste disposal’ (“water”). Germany cooperates with a total of
nine countries from this regions: with seven it cooperates in the field
“WiRAM”, with six in the water sector, and with five in the protection of
resources, the nature and the environment. The education, health, and rural
development sectors are defined as priority areas of German DC only in
one MENA country each. The promotion of good governance is a priority
area in two MENA countries; in addition, it is the object of a regional project
of cooperation with Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia (see Table A16,
Annex).
In fact, it is neither possible nor permissible to equate DC in individual
sectors with a contribution to implementing specific MDGs. DC in the
education sector, for instance, may help a partner country to reach MDG2
and MDG3. At the same time, though, it may also contribute to implementing
other goals, such as e.g. MDG4, MDG5, or MDG6, by strengthening
the awareness of students for the need for preventive measures designed
to maintain and improve health or facilitate access to medical
drugs; and it may contribute to MDG1 by improving the employment and
income opportunities of school graduates, in this way helping to reduce income
poverty, hunger, and unemployment; or it may contribute to MDG7
by awakening an understanding for the need to deal more carefully with
the environment and with scarce natural resources.
Likewise, DC can also can also contribute to reaching one of the MDGs
when it is not conducted in a sector that appears immediately relevant to
that goal. It is e.g. conceivable that efforts to implement MDG4, MDG5,
and MDG6 could fail less for a lack of health infrastructure than for the
demand for it. Even if rural regions are sufficiently supplied with health
services, it is possible that the population may not make use of them because
most households lack adequate awareness of the significance of appropriate
preventive healthcare or because they are too poor to seek medical
treatment, which might force them to miss work. What would in this
case hold more promise than DC for expanding or reforming the healthcare
system is measures that would contribute to enhancing health awareness
among the population.
German Development Institute 127