By Mwalimu George Ngwane
“We will have to rely on ourselves, our own resources and our efforts”
Thabo Mbeki
The United Nations summit of 14 – 16 September in New York has ended without the agenda of Africa’s development occupying central debate.
Like the media – hyped G8 summit of 6 – 8 July on Debt Relief in Gleneagles; Scotland, the UN Summit once again derailed the focal issues of the Millennium Development Goals (universal Primary Education, eradication of poverty, gender equality, reducing child mortality, environmental sustainability, fight against disease etc) in favour of reforms of the United Nations, and definitions of terrorism.
Established in September 2000, the Millennium Development Goals provided an economic vision that would ensure that poverty is reduced by half by the year 2015. Ten years before 2015, economic experts are already predicting that these goals will not be met as many countries (12 out of the 18 countries are from Africa), have already fallen off track. Only the Mauritius Island and Botswana stand head high in Africa. Economic experts lay the blame on the inequitable character of world trade and the dismal governance and development orientations imposed on Africa leadership, by Western multinational establishments. Africa’s leadership has compounded an already bad situation through its prebendal governance, liberalised autocracies kleptomaniac economies, frivolous electioneering expenditure, and intellectual persecution. Therefore, most of the people who attended the just ended UN summit are more of the problem than solution to Global Poverty.
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