The Mellinnium Development Goals and their flawed foundations

A story of two pregnant men.

This is an unplanned reactive post, little planning went into the creation of this post and it is superficial to say the least.As I was traveling home from Nyahururu at a shopping center called Kasuku two men board the Matatu, what the Nigerians call a bus and the English call an omnibus. One of the men is heavily laden with some luggage, they both hugle with the makanga over what fare they will pay to Shemba(a district hospital in Ol-Kalou town.

I am in the Matatu, to death and asking when i will get off, so when the two men make acquaintance and start conversing freely i am delightfully happy to eavesdrop. It turns that both of them are going to visit some in-patients at the District Hospital. "Ndathie kuona mutumia wakwa akomete Shemba thutha wa kuhorwo kana mucie" "(I am going to see my wife who is in hospital after giving birth at home)" on of the men tells the other. "Ona nie ndathi kuona sister ya my wife ahetwo kana no anie mutimia wakwa ari na mathina o ta maku aforcirwo gutwarwo Naikuru." "(I am going to see my sister in law but my wife had a similar situation and had to be transported to Nakuru," the other man consoles him. "Kana karicirwo gatakinyite na kararwa gatinio gikonyo ni atumia metwo kumuciarthia, rio kari incubator ine. " "(The baby was born pre-maturely and and developed complications after the women who came to help her give birth cut her umbilical chord," the first man continues.

I soon realize that I am almost alighting but not before listening to the two men go on and on about how expensive it is to take care of a patient at the District Hospital.

After I alight i have food for thought. My re-collection of my undergraduate studies is really thin but i remember though that there was the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) noble goals in themselves. Among the goals, One explicitly claims that it aims to end or reduce maternal mortality. "Isn't that great? Yes of course, sorry again for answering my own rhetoric question.

The two men come back to mind, they are two young men barely older than I am, married with everything seemingly going on for them. Both however shrugged the comfort of hospital delivery for home-birth. Kenya would have lost two productive and young Kenyan women. Apparently the assumption that people choose home delivery is because of inaccessibility also erroneous, for Kasuku township is barely 20 Kilometers away from the District Hospital and it costs 30KSHs (approx 0.40 US$D) on a Matatu. It is also erraneous to assume that it cost constrain keep mothers away from hospital delivery, giving birth in Kenya is as cheap as 2000KSHs around 30 US$D, this effectively reduces to 1000KSHs after cashing in a government voucher worth 1000KSHs at delivery. While i acquiesce that the above costs could be mortifying for most of the country's rural and unemployed folk, it is definitely possible to raise the amount with if the goodwill to do so was present.

The question that begs though is why do most Kenyans and Kenyan women especially so in the 21st century shrug off hospital delivery for home delivery. The answer so is simple; the MDGs are just that, goals. The answer though is simple, how many of the rural folk know about the MDGs? How many of the rural folk know what the goals envisaged by the MDGs are? In most cases policy makers both government and non-government actors toast themselves to and wine in exquisite hotels discussing the milestones that have been achieved with regards to the MDGs. With approximately three years to go to the benchmark the year 2015, it is apparent that only modest achievements of the MDGs will be realized. The onset of this ominous situation lay in the very foundation of the MDGs, at the initial stage really gullible planners did not seek ways to allow for participatory approaches to achievement of the goals. Had participatory approaches been used at the very onset, individual people would have been at the very forefront towards championing a cause for the achievement of the goals. We now have an ugly situation where governments and myriads of non-state actors ignorantly assume that they can direct large scale planning for capable of leading people towards the promised land of MDGs.