RI To Achieve MDGs' Fifth Target

Jakarta (Antara Bali) - Nila Moeloek, special envoy on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to Indonesia's President, is optimistic that the country will be able to meet the fifth target of MDGs although the country's current maternal mortality ratio is high.

"Although Indonesia's maternal mortality ratio  is the highest in Southeast Asia, we are optimistic the MDGs' fifth target will be achieved because many people are currently working on the reproduction problems in the communities," Moeloek said in a seminar on  "Beyond MDGs: Indonesia's Role as Middle Income Country on HIV and Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights" here, Monday.

The Indonesian government's commitment to the reduction of the maternal mortality ration has been reflected by the country's adoption of  the Cairo's International Conference on Population and Development Programme of Action in 1994, and later the MDGs agreement, she said.

The fifth target of the eight-target MDGs is to reduce by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio  by 2015.

However, Dr Nafis Sadik, former executive director of UNFPA, said in the seminar that it would be difficult for Indonesia to achieve the fifth target of MDGs given the country's high maternal mortality rate at 228 per 100,000 live births currently.(*/DWA/IGT)