There's been progress as well as setbacks during last 10 years in Africa. More and more countries have been able to hold elections. There have been some improvements in education in some countries (Malawi and Guinea for example) and the number of children dying has fallen in Gambia. HIV/AIDS rates have fallen in Uganda and Senegal.
Then to the setbacks. More children are dying in Malawi, Kenya and Zambia. Schools are not working as well as they could be in some other countries. In many countries gender equality is still far away. Another thing is that there is an endless list of countries, whose HIV/AIDS epidemic has gone worse and worse.
It's hard to say anything about the progress in over 50 countries. Often you can't trust in the regional information you get. There we've used the best, up-to-day information we were able to get.

There were some great success stories during the 1990s in Africa. But all together, the steps towards the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals) have been slow, especially if we talk about the poor. It seems that at least 23 Sub-Saharan countries are going to fail achieving about half of the goals. There should be some great acts to get closer the goals.

The progress in child mortality, gender equality, famine, basic education and clean water hasn't been very fast. And the progress that has been made has not been effective enough. The poor have been kinda forgotten. Even though the goals are meant to help the situation of the poor, you can't see it very well in Africa.

Still, it's said that it's not too late. We should not give up the dream of goals achieved by 2015.

Almost half of the people in Sub-Saharan Africa live on less than $1 a day. That makes about 300 million people living on that income. Sub-Saharan Africa is the poorest region in Africa. Thousands of people - mostly children - cannot live on that. They die without reaching even the age of 5. Every year there are 6 million more people living on $1 a day. If it continues the same way, the number of poor people will be higher in Africa in 2015 than it was in 1990. It's possible that it will rise from 314 million (2001) to 366 million (by 2015) people.

There are some countries, where the progress in this goal has been way faster. For example in Ghana and Uganda, poverty rates have fallen very much. It seems that Cameroon could also be able to achieve the poverty goal.

During the 1990s there was some progress in education. But even that isn't enough to achieve the 2015 goal. In over a third of the countries, every other child is out of school. The number of children at school has risen a little. More and more girls are able to go there. But however, if there won't be faster progress, Africa will be able to achieve the goal by 2100. It seems that by 2015 there will be about 7 countries achieving this goal.

If African countries aren't able to achieve this goal, it means that achieving the other goals will be harder as well. Education is an important word when talking about gender equality. Like the first goal, some countries have been able to get closer achieving the goal.

We can study the progress in this goal through education. In recent years, more and more girls have been able to go to school. In some countries the rates of girls going to school is almost equal to the boys' rate. But this is the situation in only a few countries. In other countries, the situation is different. For every girl going to school, there are 3 boys going there.
There are more and more women who are able to read and write. Still, however, there are more men than women who can read and write. Though nowadays for every ten men, there are 8 women, who can read and write. In Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and some other countries the literacy rate is over 90 per cent. In fact, in Botswana and Namibia there are more women able to read than men. In those countries, where much less women can read and write, achieving the education goal seems very difficult otherwise as well.

About one in six children in Africa can't live until his/her fifth birthday. The progress in this goal has been very slow and it seems many countries are not able to achieve it. In fact, there are about 7 countries, where the improvements have been fast enough to achieve the goal by 2015. But with these rates, Africa is able to achieve this goal by 2140.

However, there are some countries that seem to be well on their way. Eritrea, Guinea and Equatorial Guinea have made some great steps toward this goal. Some countries have already achieved it, like Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco. But yet there are many countries, where the mortality rates have risen, often because of HIV/AIDS.

Another leading cause of child mortality is measles. Through immunization it could be easily reduced. But there are no many children, who have been immunized against measles in Africa. The number has even fallen during the 1990s. Only Egypt, Eritrea, the Gambia, Libya, Morocco, Seychelles, and Zambia are reducing measles pretty well. But then there are countries like Burkina Faso, Congo, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Gabon, Nigeria and Togo, where the number fell dramatically. There were a few countries, who achieved more than 20 per cent growth in immunizations.

Do you know how many deaths childbirths and complications during pregnancy cause all together in Sub-Saharan Africa? That makes about 250 000 women each year. So every two minutes a woman dies. Maternal mortality is the highest in Africa. Especially in countries, like Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Burundi, Somalia, Chad and some other countries.

Trying to get to know about the situation in some countries is difficult, because there are so many incorrect diagnoses. You could compare maternal deaths to the number of doctors, nurses and other healthcare-people. There are very few childbirths, that a doctor or a nurse is attending. During the 1990s there were only a few childbirths attended by a doctor. The risk of dying in childbirth is 1-in-13 in Sub-Saharan Africa. In developed countries the risk is 1-in-4100. With this rate, goal 5 will be achieved only by 2100 in Africa.

There are already so many diseases in Africa. On top of that, HIV/AIDS epidemic is killing more and more people. It spreads poverty, worsens the status of women and makes all kind of progress very slow.

About three quarters of all the people, who die of HIV/AIDS are in Africa. There are about 40 million people, who are infected by HIV/AIDS. Over 25 million of them live in Africa. About 10 million children are orphans, because their parents have died of HIV/AIDS. So even though HIV/AIDS is a global problem, the situation is the worst in Africa.

A little more than 30 per cent of those infected by HIV/AIDS are aged between 15 and 24. Girls have a bigger risk to get infected then boys do. Especially those girls with no education and no power in the society.

There are millions of young people who have no idea how to reduce HIV/AIDS. In late 1990s there was a survey. It said that many of those young people did not know that a healthy-looking person could be HIV-positive. Over 80 per cent in Chad, Nigeria and Somalia didn't know that you can't get HIV/AIDS from mosquitoes.

HIV/AIDS worsens the situation of education as well. Teachers die and that makes sure no one gets educated. And when people are not educated, they do not know how to protect themselves against HIV/AIDS.

HIV/AIDS has become the leading cause of death in Africa. It is not problem only for those poor countries that are trying to make some progress in education and other things. But the countries, where other things are getting better, the situation of HIV/AIDS is getting worse. Botswana, South-Africa and Zimbabwe are countries like that for example.

Africa's nature is very rich and important for the whole world. Yet people there don't know how to use all the natural resources they've gotten. But they're losing those resources too fast. About 1, 3 hectares of rainforests are destroyed every year.

Africa's share of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is only about 3, 5 per cent. There are not so many people, who could use cars and other things that people use way more in the developed world. There is no cheap way to get energy in Africa. About 90 per cent of the population is still living with traditional energy sources, like crop and wood residues and animal dung.

There is less and less clean water in Africa. There has been some progress in cities, but even that progress has been very slow. The lack of sanitation system is a huge risk for everyone's health. When there is no sanitation system at schools, children do not want to go there. In Africa schools might be a place where you risk your health.

A few countries were able to make some progress in this. Chad and Senegal took the fastest steps towards this goal. But still, to meet the goal, the rates of this goal should be about four times higher than they are now.

If African countries do more trade with other countries and negotiate investments into their continent, they could reach the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals) more easily. The production in Africa was way faster during the 1980s than it was later, during the 1990s. In 1980s Africa's share of global trade was about 5 percent. But it fell to less than 3 per cent in the 1990s.

Africa has some big debts as well. In the end of 2000, the debts were about $206 billion all together. In 1990 it had been $177 billion. Many countries spend more money on paying those loans back, than they spend on local services. Like schools, hospitals etc. It doesn't make so much sense to spend so much money on the debts, when tens of millions of people don't have food, don't have a chance to get educated etc.