This section presents statistics on Millennium Development Goals. The data is compiled mainly from sources such as household surveys (e.g. labour, poverty statistics), administrative data (e.g. health, vital, education statistics) and housing and population census (e.g. safe drinking water, literacy).
On8 September, 2000,Mauritius together with 188 other Member States of the United Nations, adopted the United Nations Millennium Declaration, which embodies 8 specific goals, and 18 targets to improve humanity in the new century. The 8 goals are as follows:-
Goal 1 – Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
Goal 2 – Achieve universal primary education
Goal 3 – Promote gender equality and empower women
Goal 4 – Reduce child mortality
Goal 5 – Improve maternal health
Goal 6 – Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
Goal 7 – Ensure environmental sustainability
Goal 8 – Develop a global partnership for development
The targets are to be achieved by the year 2015, using year 1990 as a baseline.
The UN has come up with a list of 48 indicators to determine progress on the 18 targets. The indicators are based on different aspects of human development such as poverty, education, gender equality, health and environment.
In order to ensure a proper monitoring of the MDGs at both international and national level, each MemberState has a commitment to report annually on the progress achieved towards the MDGs.
Statistics on MDGs in Mauritius
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has constructed an “UN MDG database” for the Republic of Mauritius with inputs from different units of the CSO, the Ministry of Health and Quality of Life, the Electoral Commissioner’s Office, the Bank of Mauritius and other service providers in the field of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). The database contains figures on 70 UN MDG indicators from 1990 to 2010.
Initially, the UN had recommended 48 MDG indicators. As from January 2008, the UN has come up with a New MDG Framework and has reviewed the official list of indicators. Out of the 48 indicators, 10 indicators have been discarded and 22 new indicators have been included. The present database contains figures on the 58 MDG indicators as per the New MDG Framework together with the other 10 indicators which are no longer on the official list. The indicators as per the New Framework are referred as ‘NEWMDG’ and the 10 MDG indicators which are no longer in the official list as ‘OLDMDG’.
In addition to the UN prescribed list of 58 indicators, another database ‘national MDG related database’ has been constructed to monitor the MDGs at the national level. It contains 62 MDG related indicators that has been put forward by a Committee on MDGs set up under the Statistics Advisory Council.
Links to view the UN official list and metadata, and database at country level are as follows:-
Mrs. C. Rughoobur Statistician Analysis & Integration Unit, 2nd Floor, LIC Centre, John Kennedy Street Port Louis Tel: (230) 2122316 Email: cso@mail.gov.mu
