The UN Development Programme’s (UNDP) resident representative Leyla Tegmo-Reddy said this on Friday while addressing stakeholders taking part in a workshop to review the draft of a national report on these goals – or MDGs as they are better known.

She said several of the goals are likely to be missed in many countries due to challenges such as wars, other conflicts and natural calamities when the deadline comes in five years’ time.

As for Seychelles, investment in the people – a major component of all national development plans – has paid rich dividends, she added.

Mrs Tegmo-Reddy said besides reviewing progress the country has achieved, the report will help to identify success, lessons learnt and highlight emerging challenges and opportunities for continued progress on the MDGs during the remaining five years.

The eight goals are to:
- Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger;
- Achieve universal primary education;
- Promote gender equality and empower women;
- Reduce the child mortality rate;
- Improve maternal health;
- Combat HIV/Aids, malaria and other diseases;
- Ensure environmental sustainability;
- Develop a global partnership for development.

Earlier, principal secretary for foreign affairs Maurice Loustau-Lalanne had said: “The government is fully committed to the full implementation of the MDGs because from the onset we have engaged ourselves fully in this process.

“This is because we understood that the MDGs were central to our national development.”

Mr Loustau-Lalanne, whose ministry chaired the MDGs steering committee, thanked the UNDP for providing a local consultant – Benjamin Vel – to carry out the “arduous, challenging, data-intensive but necessary exercise” of drafting the report.

Mr Loustau-Lalanne said the MDGs are the most broadly supported, comprehensive and specific development goals the world has ever agreed on. Adopted by world leaders in 2000, they are both global and locally tailored by each country to suit specific development needs – ensuring that human development reaches everyone everywhere.

The goals provide concrete numerical benchmarks for tackling poverty in its many dimensions, he added. They include targets on income, poverty, hunger, maternal and child mortality, diseases, inadequate shelter, gender inequality, environmental degradation and global partnership for development.

Mr Loustau-Lalanne noted that a special review summit on the MDGs will convene in New York next month when our validated country report will be submitted.

“The high-level UN General Assembly on the MDGs will be an unprecedented opportunity for rallying and revitalising efforts and agreeing on a concrete action plan to speed up progress towards meeting the goals by the target year of 2015,” he said.

During the workshop, which was also attended by Minister for Foreign Affairs Jean-Paul Adam and other high government officials, Mr Vel gave an overview of the MDGs and presented the findings to allow stakeholders to study the data showing the progress towards achieving each goal.