Mugabe the AU chairman with poorest governance record; MDGs audit

Spilling the beans before the AU Summit; the AU Summit meets this weekend 14 and 15 June 2015 in Johannesburg chaired by President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe. High on the agenda is internal and external audit of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), UN targets which were aimed at eradicating poverty at least cut it by half world over by 2015, which expires this year. The new targets to be known as SDGs will be launched in September in New York 2015. The UN has already taken audit and I was privileged to attend such a review by UN and EU, while gains have been recorded, the targets were not met. I here look at Africa, a challenge to the incumbent Chair Robert Mugabe.

Sub-Saharan Africa remains a cause for concern in much respect although many countries have significantly improved the lives of their citizens. East African countries are leading the way both in governance and dismantling the barriers of inter trade; Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda have signed and implemented an agreement for free movement and a single joint 90 day VISA system. 6 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa have reached a milestone of 60% urbanization, and these include Botswana, Cape Verde, Gabon, and Republic of the Congo, Sao Tome and Principe and South Africa. 7 out of ten of the fastest growing economies in the world are indeed in Africa, some of these are Malawi, Mozambique, Angola, Ethiopia and Zambia. Nigeria leads in the number of SMEs, reaching a bloated figure of 17 million SMEs by 2014.

MDGS Zimbabwe audit:

Poverty:

Zimbabwe has performed dismally on all 8 MDGs but only on 2. On average 72.3% of the population is rated poor, with rural individual poverty reaching 84.3% by 2014. 30% of the population is graded extremely poor, which means statistically 30% of the population can starve to death at any time.

Inequality:

Southern African states improved Gini coefficient in terms of equality, with Zimbabwe at the bottom worst 50.01 and Namibia at the top at 74.5%

Reducing hunger:

Zimbabwe’s global hunger index stand at -17.5%, the worst in Southern Africa.

Child Malnutrition:

Africa in general has recorded progress in addressing malnutrition with countries like Tunisia, Morocco, Mauritania, Angola and Rwanda meeting their targets to beat malnutrition by 50%, Zimbabwe and DRC performed badly at the bottom 2.

Primary School and literacy rate:

Most Sub- Saharan Africa has met targets of literacy rates and Primary school completion rate for the 15- 24 year olds. All is not gloomy as Zimbabwe is the leading country in this endeavour with 99% literacy late for 15-24 year olds, other countries are Botswana and Tunisia.

Mortality rate:

Zimbabwe and Swaziland performed badly over the decade because of both ill-governance and the aids epidemic.

HIV/AIDS:

Zimbabwe has performed better than its neighbours in curbing AIDS reducing its rate of infection from 18% to 15%. This has been attributed to NGOs on awareness and distribution of free condoms, in a related incident, Zimbabwe has the highest use of freely distributed condoms in the world per population density.  

Before the heads of state lie to you, and pretend that they have the privileged figures, I thought I would share with you what is in their briefcases, my brother and sisters across Africa, we are in this together. Journalist here the facts for your to waylay and quiz the heads of state.

Elliot Pfebve is a lecturer and a researcher, who has represented MDC and Zimbabwe, at ACP, EU and AU summit and forums.