Among the developing nations in the Asia-Pacific region China is leading the campaign to achieve the MDGs by the target date of 2015. With its huge population and geographic size, the nation of China is at an advantage to meet the Millennium Development Goals due to its vast resources.
United Nations Development Programme Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific Ajay Chhibber spoke highly of China's ability to stay on track and hit most of its MDG targets along the way.
Some of China's recent successes include cutting the rate of poverty from 60% to a promising 16% in 2005, reducing malnutrition, controlling the spread of HIV/AIDS, and establishing universal primary education. Additionally, China's fiscal stimulus package allocates 25% of their budget toward improving the quality of life for citizens, like providing low-income housing and enhancing rural living standards.
With success and progress comes responsibility. Chhibber also addressed the fact that China can be a key role player in the entire region's future. "China can play an important role [so that Asia]can achieve its MDG [by 2015]. China has large [foreign exchange] reserves [and a] large [budget] for international cooperation programmes," Chhibber said.
In times like these in which many countries are failing to meet intermediate MDG deadlines, it is refreshing to hear of success stories, like China, making great strides to eradicate extreme poverty within the next 5 years. The United Nations and Millennium Develelopment Goal committee applaud China for their success and example it sets for other developing nations.
-Nick Mohazzabfar
Source: Bernama
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