ISLAMABAD:
Deputy Country Director, the United Nations Development Program Pakistan
(UNDP), Jean-Luc Stalon here Wednesday, said that Pakistan is not expected to
meet most of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015, adding that out
of 16 targets and 33 indicators Pakistan lags behind on 25 indicators.
While speaking at a consultation roundtable discussion on “Consultations on
Post 2015 Development Agenda from Pakistani Perspective” jointly organized by
UNDP and Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) Jean-Luc Stalon said
that it was one of the most fantastic initiative of United Nations with serious
engagement of governments on development and reducing poverty.
He said there is significant achievement as numbers of world’s poor ($1.25 per
day) have decreased from 1.9 billion in 1990 to 1.3 billion in 2008, which
means that 600 million people have been lifted out of poverty. However, despite
all this, the inequalities have increased throughout the world, he also
acknowledged.
He said, today around 1 billion people across the world are undernourished and
more than 205 million are unemployed whereas only 28% of global population is
covered by social protection systems. He said, all low income countries
affected by violence or fragility have failed to achieve a single MDG target.
Jean-Luc Stalon also discussed persistent inequalities in Pakistan. He
commented that GDP growth rate in the country between 2000-2012 averaged 4.5
percent but inequalities during the period increased from 0.27 to 0.29 (Gini-Coefficient).