MDG Africa Report

MDG Africa 2011 Report

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MDG Africa Report

August 24, 2012

Progress toward the MDGs is continuing, but that the food, fuel, and financial
crises over the past few years, coupled with the instability in North Africa in 2011, may impact on the pace of advancement. This calls for efforts to be redoubled to preserve gains and ensure success. In particular, declines in labor productivity, increasing youth unemployment, and rising numbers of working poor are worrisome trends for the continent.

Indeed, the recent political developments in North Africa and the Middle East are a wake-up call both for Africa and other global regions on the need for a more inclusive and equitable approach to growth.


The rising numbers of the working poor should also remind us that the essence of job creation is to provide a decent living wage and not simply a wage. Furthermore, the disproportionate representation of women among the ranks of the working poor calls for more concerted efforts to address the gender imbalance in the workforce, focusing not only on the share of female employees but on their distribution across the broad spectrum of occupational and skills categories.


The report underscores that the MDGs are closely interlinked, hence the need for an integrated approach to accelerate their achievement. To this end, it is imperative that policymakers prioritize those interventions that will have the greatest leverage or cascading effects on a wider range of indicators. For instance, we know that gender empowerment, education, poverty, and health are inextricably linked. We must therefore exploit these and other relationships to sharpen the strategic focus of our interventions.


Monitoring is central to assessing performance on the MDGs. Effective monitoring requires more substantial investments in data collection, analysis, and dissemination than is currently the case in Africa.


Improved data coverage and quality, particularly at subnational levels, are critical for unmasking intra-country variations on MDGs performance and in identifying pockets of vulnerability as a basis for targeted interventions. Indeed, this report
continues to observe considerable variations in MDGs performance between subregions, within subregions, and within individual countries.


Despite the slow progress recorded on several indicators in Africa, there are a number of documented best practices and lessons that can be harnessed in order to accelerate progress.

Document Type
Regions and Countries