Albay attains millenium development targets ahead of deadline

MANILA, Philippines - Albay has achieved most of its Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) targets earlier than the 2015 global deadline.

The MDGs, set by the United Nations, involve better health, education, and social services, among others.

Since 2007, Albay has adopted the UN’s MDGs as its own objectivesto improve people’s lives, Albay Gov. Joey Salceda said.

Salceda said their MDG performance is way up the targets at all levels, largely through the efforts of Albay Millennium Development Goals Office (AMDGO) which he created to monitor the province’s MDG performance and manage their social assets program.

Salceda said he created the AMDGO after re-visioning the original vision of “safe and shared development” to include Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) under the Hyogo Framework (Building the Resilience of Nations and Communities to Disasters) and sustained improvement in Human Development Index.

“To put money where our hearts lay, our health budget was increased from P103 million in 2007 to P173 million in 2010, nearly 17 percent of the budget. The allocation for education was similarly increased to P178 million this year, while the Special Education Fund was raised from P5 million to P18 million,” he added.

“The outcome of the bold moves are most fulfilling— elementary school participation rates went up from 77 percent to 89 percent in 2009; Infant Mortality Rate improved to 12/1000 from 33/1000; Maternal Mortality Rate dipped to 59/100,000 from 133/100,000; and Child Mortality Rate went down to 18/1000 from 23/1000 seven years earlier than the target date.”

“Philhealth coverage also increased from 10,000 to 173,000 — the biggest for any province and virtually universal.”

Poverty rate has similarly fallen to 38.7 percent in 2006, the lowest in Bicol, Salceda said.

“And while still high compared to national 33 percent, recent gross domestic product (GDP) declined to 8.2 percent in 2009 trajectory is gaining traction. The full coverage of 4Ps combined with massive investments of P37 billion over the past three years are likely to sustain poverty reduction,” he said.