Caribbean urged to harness urbanization to achieve Millennium Development Goals
A new report is urging Caribbean countries to harness urbanization in order to help achieve the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
The joint Global Monitoring Report (GMR) 2013 by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) says that urbanization helps pull people out of poverty and advances progress towards the MDGs, but, it states that, if not managed well, it can also lead to “burgeoning growth of slums, pollution, and crime.
“Urbanization has been a major force behind poverty reduction and progress towards other MDGs,” it says, stating that over 80 per cent of global goods and services produced in cities and countries with relatively higher levels of urbanization, such as those in the region, play a “major role in lowering extreme poverty”.
In contrast, the report notes that two least urbanized regions, South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, “have significantly higher rates of poverty and continue to lag behind on most MDGs.
“GMR 2013: Rural-Urban Dynamics and the Millennium Development Goals” starkly compares the well-being in the countryside versus the city.
It says that urban infant mortality rates range from 8-9 percentage points lower than the rural rates in Latin America and the Caribbean and Central Asia to 10-16 percentage points in the Middle East and North Africa, South Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa and highest in East Asia (21 percentage points).
“The rural-urban divide is quite evident. Megacities and large cities are the richest and have far better access to basic public services; smaller towns, secondary cities, and areas on the perimeter of urban centers are less rich; and rural areas are the poorest,” said Kaushik Basu, the World Bank’s chief economist and Senior Vice President for Development Economics.
“But this does not mean unfettered urbanization is a cure-all ? the urban poor in many places urgently need better services, as well as infrastructure, that will keep them connected to schools, jobs and decent health care,” he added.
The GMR, which is also an annual report card on MDG attainment, finds that progress continues to lag on reducing maternal and child mortality and providing sanitation facilities, targets which it says will not be met by the MDGs 2015 deadline.
However, the report says that progress has been “stellar” on reducing extreme poverty, providing access to safe drinking water and eliminating gender disparity in primary education, with these targets already achieved several years ahead of the MDGs deadline.
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| Date Posted | April 19 2013 |