Reaching the Millennium Development Goals: Sub-Saharan Africa and the Reduction of Extreme Poverty

n 2000 the UN member states agreed to commit their countries’ efforts towards a set of goals that would seek to better the lives of people across the world. The deadline for the Millennium Development goals was set for 2015 and so far the MDGs have reduced the extreme poverty rate in the developing world by 33% since 1990. This represents a significant success in development efforts, but the success has been uneven. In much of Sub-Saharan Africa, progress has struggled the most. The paper seeks to find out why Nigeria has seen no reduction in extreme poverty while its closest neighbor Cameroon has seen good progress. The paper argues that reducing poverty is dependent upon proper planning and execution of goals that address the needs of the poor. To test this, data on the quality of governance, and level of Official Development Assistance in Nigeria and Cameroon was compared. Cooperation with the IMF through the writing of Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers was also a factor in the study. The results show that Cameroon has seen a higher amount of development assistance and made greater efforts to cooperate with the IMF which may have contributed to its relative success.