Millennium Development Goals: country report 2015

This is the sixth and final Millennium Development Goals report (MDGR), since the adoption of the MDGs in 2000, and it reflects on the achievements made by the people of this country in dealing with the scourge of extreme poverty in all its forms. It also highlights the challenges that still remain. But as this report so vividly illustrates, there are still many challenges that we face as we accelerate our efforts to achieve the MDG goals. We are confident that we have dealt effectively with the goal to halve extreme poverty but we remain deeply concerned that relative inequality remains high, as measured by the Gini Coefficient. This is partly because of the high unemployment rate and the low labour force participation rate in our country. The report also shows that we have exceeded the targets related to universal access to education, but we are keenly aware that we should also include indicators on the efficiency, quality and outputs of the education system. The paucity of good information from the perspective of utility, accessibility and relevance seriously underscores the importance of producing such for South Africa. This is certainly true when progress made in improving maternal mortality is considered, as there is an absence of consensus on the actual level of maternal mortality in South Africa, owing to different data sources and methodology. But we do know and there is an agreement that the counting is lagging behind in measuring progress on the target of reducing the maternal mortality ratio. But as South Africans, we hold each other accountable as we re-affirm our commitment to the MDG goals and the achievement thereof.