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Guidelines for the MDG10 Shadow Report

From the Editor

It’s been 10 years now since the UN Millennium Summit of 2000 when nations signed on to the Millennium Declaration that promises to free humanity from poverty, hunger, and other forms of deprivation and to enlarge our basic freedoms. The promises were specified in the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) to be accomplished by 2015, using 1990 as baseline.

Remember also that it’s been 15 years already for both the Copenhagen Social Summit and the Beijing Women Conference. These two UN summits committed to end poverty, create employment, improve social cohesion, reduce gender disparities, promote women empowerment. These commitments have been carried over into the MDGs, though as minimalist goals and targets, with corresponding indicators.

The Philippines was among those who swore to those international commitments and keep its MDG promises. But considering where we’re coming from, we should have been done with MDGs yesterday.

The MDGs were a low bar to begin with. There’s really no excuses why middle income countries and early achievers like the Philippines would fail to deliver.

Now with five years remaining, will the promises be kept? Why, why not? What would keep the Philippines from making good on them? How would it overcome the obstacles?

Since 2000 Social Watch Philippines (SWP) has been coming out with shadow reports on MDG progress. Four such reports have been produced so far—in 2001, 2003, 2005 and 2007—all of them consistently critical but constructive. These reports echo the voices of various sectors in our society, especially those living in poverty and at the margins of social protection. These reports represent alternative perspectives and views of non-state actors about how government is doing. They also contain recommendations for how performance might be improved.

Our midterm (7.7.7) report in 2007 titled “Missing Targets” already warned the government about the high probability of failure in several of the targets. We suggested what might be done to better the situation.

The impacts of the financial, food, and fuel crises of 2008 are still very much with us. The outstanding development and environment issues before the crisis have not only worsened, their resolution now confront an even more uncertain future complicated by the all-encompassing impacts of climate change.

Government needs to exert much, much more to get back on track and then go all the way to fulfill its promises.

Our country has been practically under one regime in ten years of the MDGs. Yet, there are more poor Filipinos now than when we started with that track.

Government must account for why the number of food-poor Filipinos grew to 12.2 million people as compared to 10.8 million five years ago when all this time the economy continued to grow. We need to know why 5.2 million children are out of school and 1.4 million Filipino children drop out of elementary and secondary schools every year. We have to find out why maternal mortality ratio in the country is one of the highest in Asia, at 162 per 100,000 live births in 2006. Though we already know our natural vulnerability we need an explanation why 32.6 million Filipinos had to be exposed to risks from environment and climate-related disasters resulting in huge economic damage to life and property running up to billions. With 0ver 200 billion worth of damage from 2009 storms and floods, the outgoing regime will leave a baseline legacy not of further development but of reconstruction.

Many more questions demand a reasonable explanation.

What can we learn from the experience of the last ten years to guide us through the remaining five years? What must and can be done before 2015 to finally meet the MDG targets? Or such related questions that are even harder to answer: What will it take to reduce our vulnerability and increase our adaptive capacity to face up to multiple crises? What must and can we do to build a poverty-free and climate-risk resilient country within this generation?

These are the questions our shadow report needs to address. Beyond bringing out the data and analyzing them, beyond just shaming and blaming whoever deserves our pointing finger, our report must be able to help dig deep into the causes of failure (or lack of progress) and, more important, show the ways forward.

The shadow report intends to feed into the Medium Term Development Plan of the new regime as a reference baseline situation. We like to see an MTPDP that truly reduces poverty and inequality, ends hunger and secures our food system, creates decent jobs and livelihoods, ensures basic education and health care for all. We want an MTPDP that will make poverty history (as it should have been so in the past ten years). We want an MTPDP that will build our country’s adaptive capacity to worst-case scenarios on account of changes in the climate and weather systems.

We should be able to sensitize and enlighten government officials and citizens’ groups on issues that are not revealed or highlighted in the official MDG report. Our report must give visibility to the voices of those living in extreme poverty. It should help promote citizen participation in determining policy decisions and national strategies for the achievement of the MDGs and higher national aspirations. It should be able to complement and reinforce government’s efforts to attain the MDGs by identifying obstacles and proposing solutions for overcoming them.

Our MDG Shadow Report is composed of about 12 articles, including the main review paper, to cover all the eight MDGs and related themes such as Indigenous Peoples, Muslims, internally displaced peoples from conflict-afflicted areas in Mindanao, urban poor and women, food security, climate change adaptation.

The basic structure of all articles should start with recognition of where progress has been made and identifying problems, followed by analysis and assessment of chances and opportunities, and then conclude with recommendations.

Maximum wordage for each article is 3500, including tables, or around ten (10) pages. First drafts should be in by May 31, final drafts by July 31.

Writers are expected to undertake their own consultations required in the production of their reports. The SWP secretariat will provide all the necessary support.

All articles will be subject to review and final approval by the Editorial Board of the MDG10 Shadow Report which in this case is the Social Watch Philippines Board of Convenors.

We will hold a high-profile launch of the MDG10 Shadow Report during Stand Up and in time for UN MDG Summit in September in New York. We will print and distribute a least a thousand copies of our Report.

This project will run over a six-month period, from April to September 2010.

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