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How's Iran doing?

Iran is on track in alleviating poverty, but needs assistance in reducing the poverty gap and income disparities at the national level.

According to Iran’s 2004 MDG Report…

Extreme Poverty

• While the percentage of the population with an income of under $ 1 per day fell to 0.62 percent in 2002 from 2.24 in 1995, estimations on the basis of an income of $2 a day, which is closer to the practical minimum for middle-income countries, reveals that more than 6 percent of the population remained in extreme poverty in 2002.
• The trend of the poverty gap ratio (1005-2002) illustrates that the poor enjoy a better position, because the gap has narrowed dramatically from 0.558 (1995) to 0.113 (2002), based on $1 income per day.
• The poverty gap ratio for the food poverty line has also been reduced from 4.116 percent in 1995 to 2.238 in 2002.
• The rise in the share of total consumption of the poorest quantile from 6.8% (1995) to 7.40 (2002) which proves that the poorest households have also benefitted from a higher share.

• The available statistics show that the food poverty line, also known as the national poverty line in the MDG report, has decreased from 12.75 percent in 1995 to 8.99 percent in 2002 for the section of the population who are unable to take in the minimum threshold of dietary energy set by international nutrition standards.
• The percentage of under fives suffering from underweight has fallen sharply to 10.9% (2002) from 15.8% (1995)
• The prevalence of underweight children in rural areas lies at 13.7% percent, some 4.1 % higher than in urban areas.
• About 50% of the underweight rural children live in the provinces of Sistan-Baluchestan, Khorassan, Hormozgan, Fars and Kerman.

What are the challenges?

Important challenges, in eradicating extreme poverty and hunger in the I. R. of Iran, will be reducing the existing poverty gap and disparities. As an option the country could apply a pro-poor development strategy that internalizes the poverty alleviation programmes into existing macro socio-economic policies. In addition another way forward would be to carefully identify those social cohorts who live under the poverty line, so as to propose better-targeted subsidies and other social protection measures.

The government’s new economic plan intends to remove subsidies and undertake targeted cash transfers. However it intends to implement the plan during a period of significant stagflation, which will have further adverse outcomes on the poor and the vulnerable.

How's Iran doing?

Iran is very likely to achieve full primary enrolment by 2015, given its high 97% net enrolment rate in primary education in 2002.

According to Iran’s 2004 MDG Report…

• The net enrolment ratio, expressed as the ratio of children in the 6-10 age group enrolled in primary schools to the total population of official school-age children, steadily rose to 97 percent in 2002 from 85 in 1990.
• The proportion of pupils starting grade 1 who reach grade 5 increased from 87.1 percent in 1990 to 89.1 in 2002.
• The literacy rate for the 15-24 age group has progressively improved for both sexes.
  • The rate for men has risen from 92.2 percent to 97.6 percent (1990-2002)
  • The rate for women has soared from 81.1 percent to 94.7 percent (1990-2002).

What are the challenges?

In spite of the remarkable progress the country has made towards achieving universal primary schooling, meeting the target set for 2015 necessitates coping with some challenges. These include improving:

• the weak economic conditions of children’s families in certain rural areas,
• making educational programmes more flexible especially with a view to meeting the regional needs,
• overcoming geographical difficulties in order to access some rural and tribal regions,
• overcoming socio-cultural barriers to girls’ education in some areas of the country,
• using international experience to improve educational procedures and quality evaluation,
• identifying the illiterate and encouraging their attendance at training classes and
• strengthening private sector participation in the literacy campaign.

How's Iran doing?

In relation to the target of bridging the gender gap in primary, secondary and tertiary education by 2015 the statistics delivered as part of the last MDG report reveals that this goal is attainable. the target seems attainable in the country. However, Iran’s progress in engaging women in top management and decision-making positions, including representation of women in the national parliament, has been slow.

According to Iran’s 2004 MDG Report…

• The ratio of female students enrolled in primary, secondary and tertiary education has risen remarkably from 79.2 % (1990) to 93.1% in 2002. This has been mainly due to an increasing number of female students continuing beyond primary education and more female entrants to higher education.
• The ratio of women to men in higher education has shot up to 110.5 percent in 2002 from 37.4 in 1990.
• The ratio of literate women to men in the 15-24 age group has increased by 9.1 percent, rising to 97 in 2002 from 87.9 in 1990.
• The share of women in wage employment in the non-agricultural sector has also risen from 10.5 percent in 1990 to 12 in 2002. This rate continued to go up from 1990 to 1998 to reach 15.3 percent, although it then shrank back to stand at 12 percent in 2002. The main reason for this decline stems from an increase in job demands by women, as a result of the greater number of educated women. As a consequence, it poses a challenge for the development planners to create jobs for the educated women.
• Nevertheless, the percentage of seats held by women during four terms of the national Parliament has never exceeded 5 percent.

What are the challenges?

• A dire need for involving women more deeply in management and decision-making positions
• The need to create more jobs for the increasingly growing population of educated women.

How's Iran doing?

The latest statistics from the MDG report reveals that Iran is on track in reaching the target of reducing child mortality by 2/3s by 2015. In particular it looks promising that the targeted rate for child mortality can be reached, while further efforts might be required to reach the recommended infant mortality rate of 17 in every 1000 live births. Furthermore the country is steadily reaching the goal of providing immunization for measles for all one year old children by 2015.

According to Iran’s 2004 MDG Report…

• The country has successfully been able to decrease child mortality rates from 68 in 1000 live births in 1990 to 36 in the year 2000.
• Iran has successfully reduced its infant mortality rate, decreasing the rate by 54%, from 52 per 1,000 live births in 1990 to 28 per 1,000 live births in 2000.
• The proportion of one-year-old children immunized against measles has increased to 96 in 2001 from 85 percent in 1990, showing that there is a reasonable probability that all one-year old children will be immunized against measles by 2015.

What are the challenges?

The major challenges facing the country in reducing child mortality include;

• incorporating the mortality reduction programmes into macro health policies,
• formulating provincial plans to diminish child and infant mortality rates,
• expanding health programmes to all the remotest rural parts of the country and
• strengthening implementation of standard protocols for prenatal and postnatal care.

Overcoming these challenges requires, among others, establishing a comprehensive death information registration system for child and infant deaths, introducing new educational methods for improved child nutrition and identifying the children’s burden of diseases. Furthermore the establishment of a high level child protection council could be conductive to improving the status of children in the country.

How's Iran doing?

Iran is on track in reducing maternal mortality ratio by 75% between 1990 and 2015. This can be done as a result of the ever increasing number of births assisted by skilled attendants and an overall improvement in maternal and reproductive health. However in order to fully meet the target by 2015 needs assistance in a number of areas including monitoring of maternal care programmes.

According to Iran’s 2004 MDG Report…

• The maternal mortality ratio per 100,000 live births in Iran has decreased to 37.4 deaths in 1997 from 91 in 1989.
• Likewise, the proportion of births assisted by skilled attendants has increased from 70 percent in 1989 to about 90 in 2000.
• Moreover, the contraceptive prevalence rate in the country jumped from 49.6 percent in 1989 to 73.8 percent in 2000.
• Adolescent (15-19) fertility rate has also almost halved from 54 children per 1000 women in 1996 to 26.8 children per 1000 women in 2000.

What are the challenges?

The major challenges facing the country in relation to maternal health improvement in the context of reproductive health include:

• Implementing the standard protocols for providing pregnancy, delivery and post-delivery services;
• disseminating sufficient information on the side-effects resulting from pregnancy and childbirth;
• improving the quality of services rendered by mid-wives;
• promoting the quality of reproductive health including family planning services;
• ensuring reproductive health commodity security;
• creating a comprehensive national system to prevent maternal deaths;
• establishing an appropriate monitoring system for maternal care programmes;
• bridging data and information gaps on certain concepts of reproductive health such as breast and cervical cancer and abortion.

How's Iran doing?

Iran's successful health policy has controlled much of communicable diseases and is providing a minimum care service for the majority of the population. But diseases such as HIV/AIDS are a real threat - although current HIV/AIDS prevalence rates are low, the danger of cumulative processes taking hold are very real, and Iran is now gearing up to protect itself on this front.

According to Iran’s 2004 MDG Report…

• The total number of registered HIV/AIDS infected cases was calculated as 7,510 by late September 2004, of which 95.1 percent were men.
• Cases where the mode of transmission is unknown were estimated at 32.7 %, injecting drug use at 57.4 % is the highest mode of transmission responsible for the spread of HIV/AIDS in the country and the next highest mode at 6.8 % is through sexual contact.
• The prevalence of malaria has fallen sharply to 24.1 cases per 100,000 in 2002 from 103.5 in 1993; however, it has increased to 35.2 cases per 100,000 in 2003.
• The notification rate of tuberculosis has declined slowly from 24 cases per 100,000 in 1990 to 16 in 2003. Additionally, the percentage of estimated new infectious tuberculosis cases detected and cured under the directly observed treatment short courses (DOTS) has risen sharply from 1 percent in 1995 to 100 in 2001.

What are the challenges?

Preventing narcotics smuggling and human trafficking for sex across the borders; stronger advocacy and awareness raising especially among the youth; adopting new methods of locating HIV-positive people; establishing a comprehensive data bank on HIV/AIDS Surveillance; modifying cultural and legal approaches that adversely influence the spread of HIV/AIDS; establishing regional cooperation with the aim of preventing drug trafficking; and providing high quality Anti Retro-Viral medicines (ARVs) and Rapid Diagnostic Kits at a low price to those who need it.

How's Iran doing?

Iran, being an arid/semi-arid country, has been very successful in providing access to safe drinking water and sanitation to its urban and rural population. However, the country has performed weakly in reversing the loss of forests, energy use, CO2 emissions and consumption of ozone-depleting CFCs and all have shown a deteriorating trend. Iran also needs greater efforts in protecting biological biodiversity. Despite these notable progresses towards sustainable development, there are still shortcoming which need to be addressed.

According to Iran’s 2004 MDG Report…

Integrating the principles of sustainable development into socio-economic policies

• The ratio of the area protected for maintaining biological diversity to total surface area of the country has jumped from 4.58 percent to 7.11 percent in 2002 (according to international standards, the protected areas should cover at least 10% of the total surface area of a country.
• Energy use (kilogram oil equivalent) per $1 GDP (PPP) has increased slightly from 0.309 kilogram in 1990 to 0.338 in 2001.
• Carbon dioxide emissions per capita have jumped up to 4,681 Kg in 2001 from 4,002 in 1996.
• Consumption of ozone-depleting CFCs has increased from 4,500 tons in 1995 to about 6,179 in 2001.

Halving the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015

• The proportion of the population with sustainable access to an improved water source has increased from 89.6 percent in 1990 up to 93 in 2000.
• Besides, the percentage of the population with access to the sanitation has significantly increased from 64.3 percent in 1990 to 82.8 in 2000.

What are the challenges?

The main challenges facing the country in ensuring environmental sustainability by 2015 are the following;

• Establishing a comprehensive environmental information system for continuous monitoring of environmental degradation,
• Confronting pollutant industries,
• Addressing environmental considerations in macro-economic policies,
• Internalizing environmental concerns in the development planning model,
• Seeking technical advice on biodiversity protection and
• Setting energy consumption standards.

How's Iran doing?

While this goal aims to facilitate international development cooperation in order to provide access to the other seven goals, only four of the eight indicators are applicable to the Iranian context. These include dealing with the debt problems of developing countries, providing support for a decent work strategy, accessing affordable and essential drugs in developing countries and finally making the benefits of new technologies, in particular information and communication technologies (ICTs) available. For most of these indicators Iran has made progress, however the country needs greater stride in creating jobs and making the benefits of new technologies, especially ICTs and small-scale technologies available and accessible. There are no reliable estimates for the proportion of the population with access to affordable and essential medicines on a sustained basis.

According to Iran’s 2004 MDG Report…

• The proportion of debt service as a percentage of exports of goods and services has decreased remarkably in Iran from 59.2 percent in 1997 to 14.3 in 2002.
• The unemployment rate among 15-24 year olds was reduced to 19.2 in 1996 from 23.8 percent in 1990 but it rose back up to 28.2 percent in 2002.
• The number of telephone lines has soared from 4.04 per 100 population in 1990 to 23.2 in 2002.
• Similarly, the number of personal computers per 100 population has more than doubled from 1.96 in 2000 to 4.80 in 2002.
• The number of Internet users per 100 population was 8.3 persons in 2003.

What are the challenges?

A major challenge is building the institutional framework to put in place international cooperation for meeting the Millennium Development Goals. Furthermore in order to meet the recommended MGD targets through international development cooperation requires strengthening good governance as well as promoting human rights, especially the rights of children and women.

For further information on UNDP’s support for the achievement of the MDGs in Iran, please contact:
Ali Farzin

Programme Specialist & Head

Poverty Reduction, Economic Development and HIV/AIDS Programme Cluster

UNDP Iran

Tel: (9821) 2860691-4 (x 412)

Fax: (9821) 286 9547

Email: ali.farzin@undp.org