Progress Toward The Millennium Development Goals Poverty levels On current trends, most of the countries of Sub-Saharan Africa will not meet any of the MDGs.
In 2002, Africa’s share of population in poverty fell slightly to 44 percent, below the 46.4 percent in 2001 but virtually the same as in 1990. Current projections are that in 2015 Africa’s poverty rate will remain over 38 percent—far above the 22.3 percent target.
The State of the Investment Climate: According to the World Bank/IFC report, Doing Business in 2006, African nations impose the most regulatory obstacles on entrepreneurs and were slower than any other region in implementing reforms to ease constraints on doing business, averaging around 0.6 reforms per country in 2004. But some countries, such as Rwanda and Nigeria, are acting to improve their business environment. Mauritius and South Africa both rank among the top 30 economies globally on the ease of doing business; Namibia is not far behind at 33rd. The State of Infrastructure: From the mid- to late-1990s to 2002, the average electrification rate for the region improved to about 27 percent—a gain of five percentage points but still the lowest among regions. Africa has made the slowest progress in access to water and sanitation. Only an estimated 64 percent of the population has access to safe water and 37 percent to improved sanitation. Although the number of telephone subscribers has tripled in African countries, the proportion of households with phones remains below five percent. Progress on MDGs Poor, but some trends are positive: While much of Africa is off track to meet the nutrition target—with outcomes even worsening in some countries—notable progress has been made in The Gambia.  | | | | | Poverty rate at $1 a day | | 1990 | 
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| Actual | 2002 | 
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| Projected | 2015 goal | 
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| Path to goal |
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There has been accelerated progress on the universal primary education goal. In Niger and Guinea, part of the Fast Track Initiative (FTI), primary completion rates have been increasing three times faster than before 2002–3. Countries making the fastest progress—such as FTI countries Ethiopia and Mozambique and others such as Benin and Rwanda—are exceeding the rates of improvement achieved by today’s industrialized countries at a similar point in their history. But the primary completion rate for girls is still more than 15 percent lower than that for boys. In 2015, it is projected that 21 of 133 countries—12 of them in Sub-Saharan Africa—will still have girls’ to boys’ primary enrollment ratios below 0.9. Only 30 percent of girls go to secondary school. Strong-performing countries include Mauritania, which increased the primary enrollment ratio for girls from 39 percent in 1990 to 85 percent in 2001. Rwanda has made great strides in political participation for women, who comprise 49 percent of members of the National Assembly. In some African counties, particularly those that have been hardest by either conflict or HIV/AIDS— Central African Republic, Cote d’Ivoire, Rwanda, Botswana, Kenya, Lesotho, South Africa, and Swaziland—child mortality rates are rising. On the other hand, some African countries—Eritrea, Comoros, Cape Verde, Mozambique, and Guinea—are achieving exceptionally sharp increases in child survival—reflecting in part expanded immunization coverage. In Madagascar, the current pace of decline in child mortality (more than 4.3 percent a year) is sufficient to reach the MDG. There has been almost no improvement in maternal mortality since 1990 in Africa: In 1990, 40 percent of women had skilled attendants at delivery; in 2003, the figure had only risen to 41 percent. Sub-Saharan Africa remained the most HIV/AIDS-affected region, as home to 63 percent of the world’s people living with HIV. However, new evidence suggests that prevention programs initiated some time ago are finally bearing fruit in Zimbabwe, the first documented decline in Southern Africa: HIV prevalence appears to have fallen from 26 percent in 2002 to 21 percent in 2004. Evidence that decreased HIV prevalence also reflects real successes of HIV prevention programs comes from recent comparisons of prevention activities across regions in Tanzania and across the Uganda-Kenyan border Improved spending bodes well for future progress. Countries registering particularly high increases in the budget shares for education and health include Angola, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Zambia. While the general trend is up, a few countries have seen large drops in spending shares for education and health: Cameroon, The Gambia, and to a lesser extent, Mozambique. MONITORING AND IMPROVING GOVERNANCE Improving governance and fighting corruption is today Africa’s biggest challenge. But while there are great distances to go, progress is certainly being made: An effective bureaucracy facilitates the scaling-up of aid. There are numerous examples of progress in Africa in this area. In terms of public financial management for example, according to the World Bank’s performance criteria (the CPIA), Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali, Tanzania and Uganda were among the better performers.
The 2006 Global Monitoring Report points to Tanzania as an example of effective administrative reform, underway since 1991. The program incorporates both a phased approach to pay reform , and a performance improvement model that gives individual agencies incentives to clarify their role and mission, develop strategic plans, and identify and address capacity development needs.
Several countries have adopted Freedom of Information Laws. South Africa enacted a comprehensive law in 2001, and many countries in southern and central Africa, mostly members of the Commonwealth, are following suit.
Checks and balances are improving, if unevenly. Among the forces supporting transparency is an active civil society. In Tanzania, the Rural Initiatives and Relief Agency helped 10 local communities track government program expenditures for health and education. The pilot projects appear to have helped ensure that commitments to deliver funds were met. The expenditure tracking tool has been made available to CSOs in other rural areas of the country.
Civil society engagement is increasing, albeit slowly, and is well developed in Ghana, Rwanda and Uganda. Rwanda’s poverty reduction strategy (PRS) process is notable for the level participation and disclosure. According to one “voice and accountability” measure, Benin, Ghana, Lesotho, Mali, São Tomé and Principe, and Senegal ranked high.
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