From the Inquirer, comes this analy­sis of the nat­ural dis­as­ters in the Philip­pines. Each time bad weather strikes the nation, it sets it fur­ther back from meet­ing the Mil­len­nium Devel­op­ment Goals.

Barely six years before the dead­line for achiev­ing its Mil­len­nium Devel­op­ment Goals (MDG), the Philip­pines con­tin­ues to lag behind on its MDG targets.

Worse, the series of nat­ural dis­as­ters that hit the coun­try have fur­ther set back government’s efforts to reduce, if not erad­i­cate, extreme poverty by 2015.

With the Arroyo admin­is­tra­tion “on its last mile,” it would be great if they could focus hard on the achieve­ment of the country’s MDG goals and meet­ing the needs of the poor­est peo­ple of this coun­try and leave a great legacy,” said Salil Shetty, direc­tor of the United Nations Mil­len­nium Campaign.

Shetty was in the coun­try to “remind your lead­ers of the promises they made” on the country’s MDGs.

Accord­ing to Shetty, the MDGs must be brought to the local level where their achieve­ment will either be won or lost.

When inter­viewed, Shetty stressed the need for “disaster-proofing” the MDGs, or inte­grat­ing dis­as­ter risk reduc­tion into government’s devel­op­ment plan­ning and poli­cies so it could con­tribute to the achieve­ment of the country’s MDGs.

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