How's Iran doing?

The data announced by the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran concludes that MDG 1 has nearly been met in the Country. This success, which has been registered during the course of the FYDPs, has been due to various factors, such as sustained economic growth, which has naturally led to increases in national income, and reductions in the rate of unemployment, together with the expansion of social security coverage, particularly in the areas of public education, reproductive health and family planning.

According to Iran’s 2006 MDG Report…

Extreme Poverty

• Reviewing the indicator proportion of population with income below $ 1(PPP) per day, we can see that this indicator has demonstrated a decrease from 0.9% of the total population in 1999 to 0.2% in 2005. Likewise, according to the latest data available, during the period 1999 to 2005, proportion of population with income below $ 2 (PPP) per day has seen a significant decrease from 7.3% to 3.1%;

• Indicators poverty gap ratio based on $ 1 and $ 2 (PPP) per day represent the distance of the income of the poor from the poverty line as a percentage of the poverty line, this describing the conditions of poverty for the people living below the poverty line. There has been considerable improvement in the poverty gap ratio based on $1 and $2 (PPP) per day, from 0.2% and 1.4% respectively in 1999 to 0.1% and 0.6% in 2005. In other words, average income for people with income below $1 and $2 per day has been in the increase, approaching the standard defined for $1 and $2.

• The poverty gap ratio for the food poverty line has also been reduced from 3.9 percent in 1999 to 1.9 in 2005.

• The rise in the share of total consumption of the poorest quintile from 5.5% (1999) to 5.9% (2005) which proves that the poorest households have also benefitted from a higher share.

Extreme Hunger

• The available statistics show that the food poverty line, also known as the national poverty line in the MDG report, has decreased from 13.5 percent in 1999 to 7 percent in 2006 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 children under five years of age suffering from underweight has fallen sharply to 5% (2006) from 15.8% (1991). Based on the available data by the Statistical Centre of Iran, the indicator has decreased to one-third during this period, which is far greater improvement that the defined target of half the original value by 2015.

• The prevalence of underweight children in rural areas lies at 13.7% percent, some 4.1 % higher than in urban areas.

• Despite the improvements achieved, nearly 7% of the population is deprived on the minimum level of dietary energy requirements; therefore, more effectual measures need to be called for in this area.

What are the challenges?

In spite of meeting the poverty-related MDG targets and indicators, a percentage of the population still remains below the poverty line and would need to receive government benefits. Major challenges regarding the implementation of poverty reduction policies include:

• Establishment of a system for the identification of low-income household and expanding the coverage of the benefits for vulnerable population against economic fluctuations;
• Addressing problems arising from the disproportionate growth and distribution of the population, increased migration and urbanization, changing population structure and increased share of the youth population;
• Identification and alleviation of undesirable impacts of the implementation of macro policies on the level of poverty and income distribution;
• Alleviation of the impact of the globalization in the labor market and implementation of risk-management mechanisms (both insurances and benefits), and
• Disaster (risk) management, in view of the country’s location in a region exposed to large-scale natural hazards.

How's Iran doing?

Iran is very likely to achieve full primary enrolment by 2015, given its high 98% net enrolment rate in primary education in 2005.

According to Iran’s 2006 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 and surpassed 98% in 2005 compared to the 85% in 1990.

• The proportion of pupils starting grade 1 who reach grade 5 shows an improving trend. While in 1990 of every 100 pupils who had enrolled in grade one, around 13 would have left school prior to reaching grade five, in 2005 this number had decreased to less than 6.6%. The proportion of elementary education survival increased from 87.1% in 1990 to 93.4% in 2005.

• The literacy rate for the 15-24 age group has remained unchanged for men, but progressively improved for women in 2005 compared to 2006. However, it has improved from 1990 to 2005:

1. The rate for men has remained the same; i.e. 98.1% (2006-2005) and improved (1990-005);

2. The rate for women has improved from 96.2 percent to 96.7 percent (2006-2005), but improved from 81.1% to 96.7% (1990- 2005).

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:

• Relatively high costs of schooling for families (especially in rural communities), which result in the unwillingness of parents to send their children to school;
• The need for creating an appropriate framework for the promotion of non-public sector investment in education;
• Transforming the educational assessment system from one based on the chalk and talk method to one based on performance (process evaluation) on educational components;
• Planning and providing the necessary resources for the education of children, taking into consideration factors such as geographical dispersion of communities, climatic conditions, rural to urban migration and mobility of the nomadic populations, across various areas of the country;
• Taking into account personal, psychological, climatic, social, environmental, racial, regional and cultural differences among learners of formal and non-formal education programmes in the design of the curricula;
• Strengthening attitude and behavioral aspects required by the labor market through the introduction of life skills (i.e. teamwork, problem solving, creativity, critical thinking, communication skills, goal setting abilities, responsible behavior, self-confidence, taking initiative, leadership skills and respect for others), in the national education system;
• Implementation of a comprehensive human resources programme and improvement of the motivational system for attracting and retaining quality human resources and providing specialized human resources for special needs schools;
• Identification and enrolment of school age children who are out of school;
• Utilization of full capacities of the existing information system and establishing of full access to the required data pertinent to various operational units within the education system, in order to facilitate decision-making processes;
• Formulation of a comprehensive and coordinated strategy for education-related research activities;
• Equipping schools with new educational technologies;
• Appropriate assignment of responsibilities to provincial and regional directors and to school principals;
• Development of the necessary skills and updating the knowledge of school principals, educational policy makers, curricula programmers and instructors of teacher training courses, with regards to the use of new educational technologies, and
• Strengthening awareness-raising systems (such as research, monitoring, evaluation and quality control) for public education planning.

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 2006 MDGs Report…

• The ratio of female students enrolled in primary, secondary and tertiary education has risen remarkably from 79.2 % (1990) to 94.3% in 2005. 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 10.7 percent, rising to 98.6 in 2005 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 16.1 in 2005. 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 2006 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 99% in 2003 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.

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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 2006 MDG Report…

• The maternal mortality ratio per 100,000 live births in Iran has decreased to 24.6 deaths in 2005 from 91 in 1989.

• Likewise, the proportion of births assisted by skilled attendants has increased from 89.6 percent in 2000 to about 97.3 in 2005.

• Moreover, the contraceptive prevalence rate in the country jumped from 49 percent in 1989 to 78.9 percent in 2005.

• 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 2006 MDG Report…

• The total number of registered HIV/AIDS infected cases was calculated as 12,698 by late September 2005, of which 94.5 percent were men.

• Cases where the mode of transmission is unknown were estimated at 26.2 %, injecting drug use at 64.2 % is the highest mode of transmission responsible for the spread of HIV/AIDS in the country and the next highest mode at 7.4 % is through sexual contact.

• The prevalence of malaria has fallen sharply to 30 cases per 100,000 in 2005 from 94 in 1996; however, it has increased to 35.2 cases per 100,000 in 2003.

• The notification rate of tuberculosis has declined slowly from 43 cases per 100,000 in 1990 to 27 in 2006. 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.

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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 2006 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 4.6 percent in 1997 to 7.32 percent in 2005 (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 0.327 in 2006.

• Carbon dioxide emissions per capita have jumped up to 5,284 Kg in 2006 from 4,002 in 1996.

• Consumption of ozone-depleting CFCs has increased from 5,883 tons in 1997 to about 2,221 in 2005.

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

• 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 2006 MDG Report …

• The proportion of debt service as a percentage of exports of goods and services has decreased remarkably in Iran from 63.2 percent in 1997 to 33.7 in 2005.

• 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 21.6 percent in 2005.

• The number of telephone lines has soared from 4.04 per 100 population in 1990 to 29.6 in 2005.

• Similarly, the number of personal computers per 100 population was increased from 6.28 in 2000 to 10.37 in 2006.

• The number of Internet users per 100 population was 9.87 persons in 2006.

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.

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