By Sanjeev “Mahatma” Gupta
I recall when I was about 10 in the early nineties, posters from the World Health Organisation that adorned street poles and billboards in the country I did spend my a childhood in political exile  preached about achieving “Health for all by the year 2000”.
When the new millennium dawned, countries had failed to fulfill this objective as infant mortality quadrupled, unemployed trebled and poverty levels more than doubled. Most people did not have access to even primary health care facilities.
 
Soon, another target was to be set.
As the curtain was drawn on the late 1990s and the 2000s ushered in, the United Nations, undeterred by the previous failure of Health for All by the Year 2000, came up with concept – Millennium Development Goals (MGDs) which spanned eradication of extreme poverty and achieving universal education to ensuring environmental stability and fighting diseases like malaria and HIV/AIDS..
But in 2015, the cutoff point of MDGs, regrettably, most African countries  have not implemented a tenth of goals, as corrupt leaders continue plundering and misusing state resources. Thus far, it is only Botswana and Equatorial Guinea.
And, pathetically, in the average African country there has been rising food insecurity, collapsing or nonexistent infrastructure for basic services like health, education and health. For sure, this is not what the UN had in mind.
As long as countries do not do put their houses in order, development goals will only remain fleeting illusions that will be pursued but never fulfilled.
Information that China and India have achieved most of goals mean that they have done something right which African countries. Will the goal posts be shifted again?
Critics have argued that the MGDs were stillborn from the beginning as they were unrealistic, given the targeted countries’ face resource constraints and lack of implementation capacity.