Statistics South Africa on Millennium Development Goals country report

South Africa prepares to close off Millennium Development Goals

The Millennium Development Goals country report is not about dead numbers, but about people and their living conditions. We need to remember the human face and stories behind the numbers.

As the international community prepares to close off the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and move towards the post-2015 development agenda, South Africa is hard at work preparing the final MDG country report.

At the Millennium Summit in September 2000, the largest gathering of world leaders in history adopted the United Nations (UN) Millennium Declaration, committing their nations to a new global partnership to reduce extreme poverty and setting out a series of time-bound targets, with a deadline of 2015 that have become known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The MDGs are the world’s time-bound and quantified targets for addressing extreme poverty in its many dimensions – income poverty, hunger, disease, lack of adequate shelter, and exclusion – while promoting gender equality, education, and environmental sustainability. They are also basic human rights – the rights of each person on the planet to health, education, shelter, and security.

The deadline for achieving these goals is 2015, and the final country reports, which will outline how far countries have come, will be presented at the UN General Assembly in September 2015. Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) as the department mandated by government to collect official statistics, is the coordinator of this process.

South Africa produced full country reports in 2005, 2010 and 2013, with updates being published in the intervening years. In 2005, civil society published a shadow report as they were not satisfied with the country report. In an effort to ensure that this does not happen again, Stats SA embarked on a vigorous campaign to ensure that civil society is included in every step of the process.

Sectoral Working Groups (SWGs) were appointed to collate the data needed to inform the MDG report. These groups have now completed the process of data collection and quality checking, and at a meeting held in Pretoria on 13 February, the data was handed to those who would be writing the goal reports.

Expanded Report Drafting Teams (ERDT), consisting of representatives from civil society and relevant sector departments, were established to assist the authors with the compilation of the reports and to ensure that society’s voice is heard. Provincial information sessions will be held to ensure that key stakeholders are updated as to progress.

The report will be completed by 5 June 2015, in order to ensure that South Africa meets the deadline for submission to the UN.

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