Abstract
Progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Africa is mostly marginal; the UN 2012 report found that by 2015, sub-Saharan African countries will not have progressed sufficiently to reach the target if current trends do not change. Goals most closely associated with women have recorded least progress—except in reducing the prevalence of HIV-AIDS, malaria and other diseases, and near-parity in girls’ Primary School enrolment. This chapter argues socio-cultural traditions still drive inequality; MDGs have failed to consider the impact of traditional cultural practices on cultural change. Property ownership and ability to leverage personal property for loan and economic purposes economically disempower women. Without countering the resultant negative effects, MDGs will not be achieved even after the 2015 deadline.
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Platteau quotes Lewis (1955), Meier and Baldwin (1957), Bauer and Yamey (1957) and Hirschman (1957) as being instrumental in examining how cultural traditions/practices negatively influenced and/or stagnated economic development but with recognition of the importance of integration of cultural practices and avoidance of the belief that western technology/development is necessarily superior to that of other countries.
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Magu, S.M. (2015). African Gender Development Gap: Rethinking Strategies to Achieve MDGs. In: Andrews, N., Khalema, N., Assié-Lumumba, N. (eds) Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Retrospect. Social Indicators Research Series, vol 58. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16166-2_8
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