The Millennium Development Goals in The CIS Countries

Are the MDGs relevant to the CIS?

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are at the heart of the international development agenda. The goals have their origin in the Millennium Declaration, which appeals to the universal values of freedom, equality, solidarity, tolerance, respect for nature and shared responsibility to rouse the world to an ambitious effort to eradicate poverty and other social ills. The MDGs were defined with an eye to the development realities of the world’s poorest countries, and analysis and policy thinking about them has been oriented to a large degree to Sub-Saharan Africa. This was the case, for instance, with Investing in Development: A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals, the action plan to achieve the MDGs that was prepared by the Millennium Project led by Jeff Sachs and commissioned by the UN Secretary General and sponsored by UNDP.

But are the MDGs relevant to the Russian Federation and the varied countries that comprise the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)—some of them middle-income, some of them suffering from dire poverty? Are the goals relevant in their ‘pure’ global formulations, or should they be tailored to suit national realities? If the latter, how should concrete targets be defined so that pursuit of the MDGs is most beneficial for these countries? How can the CIS countries achieve these goals, as appropriately defined? And how should progress be measured?

These questions are at the heart of UNDP’s approach to the MDGs in Russia and the rest of the CIS. UNDP’s experience across the region underscores the relevance of the MDGs, both as an inspiration to energetic efforts on behalf of the world’s poor and as a flexible framework within which countries can adapt the ‘global’ goals to address their own specific challenges. Much of the MDG effort rests on the technical work of economists, statisticians and policymakers, whose job it is to map the main challenges in poverty, education, health, and environment, and to plot solutions. But when dealing with the technicalities of goals, targets and indicators (something UN experts produce in large quantities), it is important not to lose sight of the values behind the MDG effort.

An inspiration for social solidarity

The ideal of social solidarity is at the core of the MDGs and the Millennium Declaration that inspired them, and this is what makes the Declaration such an important document and, incidentally, such uplifting reading: “Those who suffer or benefit least deserve help from those who benefit most”, the Declaration proclaims. This is the first time that this fundamentally moral imperative has been expressed with such clarity in an international context. Looking at the MDGs from this angle, it is obvious not only that the goals make profound sense in the CIS context but also that they address the spiritual vacuum that is a painful legacy of the Soviet system.

The Soviet Union enshrined an official ideology based on social solidarity, yet this was violated in everyday practice. Instead, Soviet reality promoted a cynical individualism that bordered on survival of the fittest. This outlook has persisted after the collapse of communism. ‘Oligarchic’ business elites are very different from the laissez-faire ideals of liberal pro-market advocates, and market institutions have developed without proper regulatory underpinning or the safeguard of competition against monopolistic profiteering. Income and asset inequality increased in the CIS in the early years of transition. Hence the compelling need to reintroduce, in a dramatically different institutional setting and with very different consequences, the message of genuine social solidarity. For the poorest countries of the CIS in Central Asia, the Southern Caucasus and Moldova, the international dimension of social solidarity is also compelling.

Applying the MDGs

The MDGs are relevant not only as a moral inspiration, however. The poorest CIS countries are much poorer than is generally assumed, in part because of a widely held illusion that the industrialisation brought development to all corners of the Soviet Union. The traditional, ‘global’ MDGs are thus directly applicable to parts of the CIS. The fit is best in the Central Asian countries, due to the sub-region’s legacy of post-Soviet economic collapse, unfavourable landlocked geography, and generally low per-capita GDP, but the Caucasus countries and Moldova are also impoverished. Income poverty is quite apparent in these countries, particularly in rural areas. So are unfavourable trends in education, infant mortality, and other MDG indicators.

For these reasons, the Millennium Project report has recommended that Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, as well as Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Moldova, put the MDGs at the centre of the national development agenda by aligning them with poverty reduction strategy papers. Moreover, the report has classified Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan as ‘MDG fast-track’ countries that could be eligible for increased official development assistance. A closer look at the plight of these countries explains why these are sound proposals.

A comparison of GDP per head provides some striking results. Tajikistan’s GDP per head, US$980 at purchasing power party, is lower than that of many of Africa’s poorest countries, including Kenya (US$1,020), Rwanda (US$1,270) and Uganda (US$1,390). In the European CIS, Moldova’s GDP per head (US$1,470) is lower than that of Sudan (US$1,820), Ghana or Angola (both at US$2,130). Even Russia’s GDP per head, the highest in the CIS, is only 80 percent of that of South Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa’s richest country. While the nature and genesis of poverty in the CIS may be very different from that in Africa, its magnitude is actually, and sadly, comparable.

Against this background, the world community’s indifference to the plight of the poorer countries of the CIS often seems outright discriminatory. President Vladimir Putin of Russia recently called attention to this discrepancy when, while endorsing UK proposals to increase international aid to Africa, he remarked on the need for international assistance to the CIS.

The Millennium Project has, to a limited extent, reckoned with this issue by including Tajikistan into the first round of pilot projects of its ‘needs assessment’, alongside Asian and African countries (Bangladesh, Cambodia, Ghana, Tanzania and Uganda). This methodology, whereby the government, with the support of external experts, sets poverty reduction goals for 2015 and then drafts a programme of how to achieve them, including international donor support, should be applied to all CIS countries with extremely low levels of GDP per capita. The compelling reason for this is that these very poor countries will need large-scale international assistance as well as economic growth and sensible social policies to achieve the MDGs.

Adapting the MDGs

What of the wealthier countries of the CIS? Official statistical data in Russia, as well as in Belarus and Ukraine, do not point to widespread or extreme poverty. Likewise, poverty reduction strategy papers are not used as mechanisms to coordinate macroeconomic and social policies, or to structure official dialogue with the international development community. Poverty nonetheless remains high on the agenda of even middle-income CIS countries. Mr. Putin has declared that, in addition to doubling gross national product over the next 10 years, Russia’s development priorities include reducing poverty and income inequalities, as well as improving living standards and the quality of social services. Other CIS leaders have expressed similar sentiments.

Regional variations in the depth and breadth of poverty, as well as in the other areas covered by the MDGs, nonetheless put a premium on tailoring the goals to specific national needs. Doing so often means disaggregating national statistics, in order to reveal pockets of income poverty, unfavourable health and education trends, or other manifestations of social exclusion that may be hidden by national averages. A goal-by-goal review of how Russia and the CIS countries are doing in the main areas covered by the MDGs is an indicator of just how useful such tailoring could be.

The good news: Growth and income poverty (MDG 1)

Recent GDP trends suggest that the threat of absolute income poverty in CIS countries is receding. Annual average GDP growth during 2000-2004 in Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Tajikistan—some the region’s poorest countries (measured in per-capita GDP terms)—averaged 10-11 percent. Russia, Ukraine, and Moldova, with average annual GDP growth rates of 6-8 percent during this time, were ironically among the CIS ‘laggards’. Even these rates were roughly double GDP trends for these years in the Central European economies that joined the European Union (EU) in May 2004. In addition, Central European rates were in turn significantly above those for the EU as a whole. A growing body of evidence shows that this robust economic expansion has helped to bring about a fall in poverty rates. Recent World Bank data show that Russia halved absolute income poverty from 42 to 20 percent during 1999-2002. Tajikistan—the region’s poorest country, in per-capita GDP terms—reduced the share of those living on less than $2.15 per day (in purchasing power parity terms) from 83 percent to 64 percent during 1999-2003. Armenia cut poverty overall from 55 percent in 1999 to 43 percent in 2003; extreme poverty fell in the same period from 23 percent to 7.4 percent—a level that the government had not expected to reach until 2013. In Kazakhstan, the percentage of the population classified as living below the subsistence minimum dropped from 39 to 24 percent during 1999-2002, and has almost certainly declined further since.

These trends suggest that some good things are happening in the CIS countries, in terms of MDG 1. Unfortunately, this rising tide is not lifting all boats equally: large variations in poverty remain apparent across and within countries. In 2002, Russia’s poverty rate varied from 3 percent in the richest region (Moscow city) to 56 percent in the poorest. Much recent economic growth has been concentrated in urban areas: Russia’s poverty rate was 30 percent in rural areas versus 16 percent in urban areas in 2002.

Relative inequality in the CIS has in fact risen sharply during the past fifteen years. In Soviet times the Gini coefficient, a measure of inequality, was around 0.25, or at Scandinavian levels. It is important to remember, however, that this tool is at best a very rough measure of inequality in Soviet times, given the concealed nature of many privileges and benefits under communism. Still, by the late 1990s, income disparities in some CIS countries had reached levels more commonly found in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa. This contrasts with the new EU member states, where Gini coefficients have generally remained at European levels.

Promisingly, recent evidence suggests that growth may also be causing inequality to recede. In Armenia, the Gini coefficient for income fell from 0.535 in 2001 to 0.438 in 2003, and for consumption from 0.344 to 0.275—and the latter is a value typical of many European countries. In Russia, inequality increased until 1998, but then declined somewhat subsequently. The Gini coefficient for consumption increased from 0.370 in 1997 to 0.392 in 1998, before declining to 0.368 in 2002. In both countries, it’s worth noting that inequality in expenditure, incomes, or assets is substantially higher than consumption inequality.

Rapid economic growth combined with continuing high levels of inequality suggest that social assistance programmes in many CIS countries are not as effective as they could be. Recent World Bank data indicate that Russia has one of the least effective social assistance programmes in the world: half the benefits of targeted social assistance go to the richest 60 percent of the population. Social policy reform, to build the capacity needed to effectively target social assistance to those most in need, can help reverse these trends. Reforms introduced in the Central European countries as part of their preparations for EU accession were key to building this capacity. This is apparent in the large differences between poverty rates before and after the payment of social transfers. Armenia’s recent household survey data point to progress in targeting: some 40 percent of households classified as ‘extremely poor’ receive poor family benefits and pensions, compared to 27 percent of those classified as ‘poor’ and 19 percent of those classified as ‘non-poor’. In fact, the IMF recently credited Armenia’s "increase in social transfers through a well-targeted family poverty benefits programme” with helping to reduce inequality.

Social sphere: Unsettling education, health, and demographic trends (MDGs 2-6)

The second Millennium Development Goal in its global form concentrates on ensuring universal primary education. This goal is often redefined in middle- and upper-income countries to focus on issues of secondary and tertiary education and their links to labour markets. Such redefinitions seem quite appropriate in CIS countries, where problems of adapting the generally high levels of Soviet-era human capital to post-Soviet labour market trends are compelling. However, the issue of primary school enrolment may be becoming increasingly important in some of the poorer CIS countries. In Tajikistan, primary school attendance fell to 88 percent in 2003.

The post-1999 economic growth reported in many CIS economies has not yet reversed declines in public health, life expectancy, and disease. (This is not surprising, since a number of these problems predate the Soviet collapse.) Along with gender, these issues are at the heart of MDGs 3-6. Male mortality trends reported in many CIS countries are both unusual and disturbing: life expectancy for men in Kazakhstan dropped by seven years during 1989-2002, while rising by three years in Hungary and Poland during this time. Life expectancy at birth in Russia is among the lowest for industrial countries: 65 years on average, compared with 79 years in Western Europe. Moreover, the gender gap is huge: life expectancy is just 59 years for Russian men, against 72 years for Russian women. If 2000-2001 mortality trends were to continue, only 58 percent of Russian men then 15 years old would live to be 60. In Poland this figure would be 77 percent.

These unfavourable demographics make the epidemiological trends in terms of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and other infectious diseases reported in many CIS countries particularly worrisome. HIV prevalence rates in Russia and Ukraine (as well as in neighbouring Estonia) are rising above 1 percent of the adult population, and are on the verge of entering the general population. Reported tuberculosis cases in Russia (at 134 per 100,000 inhabitants) exceed those reported in China (113 per 100,000) and Brazil (64 per 100,000), not to mention the countries of the European Union.

Lifestyle and behavioural factors seem to be part of the problem, particularly in terms of alcohol consumption and diet, as well as car accidents and violent crime. But health care systems also seem to be to blame: the higher personal incomes associated with economic recovery are not always translating into the provision of adequate medical services. High-cost curative care is too often emphasised over lower-cost preventive care, and the proliferation of ‘informal payments’ for medical services has limited access to quality health care for low-income households.

These considerations suggest that MDGs 2-6 are quite relevant for CIS countries. In contrast to the situation in developing countries, responding to these challenges need not require massive injections of external assistance in those CIS countries with higher per capita income. Social policy reform via the appropriate decentralisation, restructuring, and modernisation of state administrations is the key. In the poorer CIS countries, massive external assistance is inevitable.

More good news: MDGs 7-8

MDGs 7 and 8 concern environmental issues and global partnerships for development. To be sure, national environmental policies in CIS countries are often inconsistent with best international practices. The region continues to struggle with the development legacies of Soviet-era environmental disasters in the Aral Sea Basin, Chernobyl, Semipalatinsk, and the like. Access to potable water is a serious issue in a number of the poorer CIS countries, particularly in rural areas.

On the other hand, Russia’s ratification of the Kyoto Protocol enabled the protocol to come into force. The CIS is likely to, and should, emerge as one of the world’s most active carbon trading regions, due in part to the large reductions in greenhouse gas emissions experienced during the economic declines of the 1990s. Regional leadership in Kyoto implementation will serve not only to protect the global environmental commons; it can also work to provide innovative new funding mechanisms for financing green economic growth in the CIS.

CIS countries are contributing to global partnerships for development in other ways as well. Russia is now moving to expand its technical assistance for some CIS and developing countries, with an initial focus on Armenia and Tajikistan. Azerbaijan, Armenia, and other CIS countries, while remaining recipients of official development aid, provided humanitarian assistance to the Southeast Asian countries that were devastated by the December 2004 tsunami. And, as the new EU member states have already demonstrated, Russia and the other CIS countries may also have broader lessons and transition expertise to contribute to the international development community.

How UNDP can help

As in many other regions, UNDP can help government, NGO, and private-sector partners in CIS countries to achieve the MDGs. Survey research conducted within the framework of the intergovernmental ‘Decade of Roma Inclusion’ has identified pockets of poverty and social exclusion among Roma, refugees, and internally displaced persons in Central and Southeast Europe. This mapping and measurement of poverty among vulnerable communities, and the development of MDG-consistent indicators to track poverty trends over time, underscores the relevance of the MDGs in middle- and even high-income countries.

UNDP is likewise assisting the Russian government in devising national indicators to measure the effectiveness of social policy. UNDP since the late 1990s has been helping the governments of the new EU member states to become more effective donors, and increase the region’s role in international development cooperation. It stands ready to do the same for Russia and other CIS countries, as they move to increase their technical assistance efforts.

Last but not least, UNDP’s climate change expertise and country office infrastructure can offer governments of the region the opportunity to move quickly to capture the economic and environmental benefits of the Kyoto protocol.

UNDP’s global mission is to provide countries with assistance in meeting the MDGs. The best way to apply the MDGs differs from country to country, even within regions sharing similar histories, as is the case with the CIS. In some cases, particularly where extreme poverty remains a widespread threat, the MDGs in their traditional, global formulation are entirely applicable. In others, where poverty is confined to specific regions or groups, a more tailored approach is appropriate. As the experience of Russia and the rest of the CIS makes clear, however, the message of the Millennium Declaration—the ideal of social solidarity—is relevant everywhere.

Kalman Mizsei is Director of the UNDP Regional Bureau for Europe and CIS in New York (RBEC) Ben Slay is Director of the UNDP? Regional Centre for Europe and the CIS in Bratislava ben.slay@undp.org Louisa Vinton is Senior Programme Manager, RBEC