A beam of poverty eradication at the end of the tunnel come 2015 is an unrealistic dream for ordinary Liberians as President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has emphatically stated that Liberia is unable to meet said goals. The Liberian leader who is touring parts of the southeastern region said, “We will not be able to meet the MDGs by 2015, but at least if we can make significant progress in reducing that level, we will owe it all to you and all those who work with you.” The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is a strategy aimed at ending poverty, an aged-old problem that has impacted the global society inevitably. With all of the strides made since her tenure as President, it seems like her tour in parts of the southeastern region and listening to the plights of the residents, Madam Sirleaf is convinced that all is actually not well.

In 2000, a summit gathered 189 world leaders to set a standard leading to how poverty can be minimized if not eradicated. At that summit, world leaders firmly committed to fight 'together' against poverty and hunger, gender equality, environmental degradation and HIV and AIDS while improving access to education and safe drinking water by 2015. But in the southeastern region, like the north and western regions, there are significant signs of environmental dilapidation; poverty and hunger written on the faces of the residents while improving access to education, health and safe drinking water have to be budgeted as a Liberian initiative before government can address such basic needs.  At a well received visit to the Zwedru Multilateral High School, a campus which also hosts the Midwifery training program for the entire southeastern region yesterday, President Sirleaf said outrightly that some of those things are not taken care of because of budgetary constraints.

Responding to the challenges faced by the students and the health care givers as it relates to vehicles and how government can begin to take ownership in terms of funding the only southeastern midwifery training program which would be left on its own by August, President Sirleaf told the eager residents that her government will do its best as the budgetary year is drawing close.  She further said that if all of their concerns are not fitted into the pending year's budget, mechanisms will be worked out to incorporate others in the next fiscal year because government can do no extra spending out of its budget especially as it relates to projects. Though it is reported that some amount of progress has been made at achieving the MDGs; there is still a huge work to be done if the goals are to be met by its targeted year, 2015, worldwide. 

The acting Deputy Director of the UNMC, Sylvia Mwichuli, a Kenyan, said “economic crisis should not be an excuse for governments because in the midst of internal constraints, governments still have the responsibility to deliver to its citizens while the West has a moral responsibility to Africa.”   “2015, is time enough for governments to meet up with the MDGs but our resources are lost in corruption,” Ms. Mwichuli reminded. The Deputy Country Representative of the United Nations Development Program in Ghana, Shigeki Komatsubara, a Chinese, cautioned all actors of the MDGs to strive to achieve the goals by the targeted year, 2015 but stressed, “Unfortunately, we are far.”    The accelerated achievement of the MDGs is too important to ignore and the issue of 'Sincere implementation' is all the MDGs needs to survive if there must be a holistic end to poverty.