Ahead of the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York in September, which will review the progress on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in their 10th year, the government is not sure who will represent India at the high-level summit, according to the representatives of some civil society groups who met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on August 19.

"The Prime Minister is not representing India at the high-level summit in New York next month. That's what he told us,” Amitabh Behar, the convener of 'Wada Na Todo Abhiyan' (WNTA), a civil society effort to track government's performance in alleviating poverty, said at the release on Monday of a rejoinder to India’s country report on MDGs 2009 in New Delhi.

"The PM was not sure who was going to New York. It clearly showed that it was not on his agenda. It is very-very saddening. MDGs are a very important commitment that India made a decade ago and September’s conference is the right platform to review that. (It) seems that PM is preoccupied with other things,” Behar said.

The Prime Minister also did not seem "in the loop" about “Mid Term Statistical Review of Millenium Development Goals- India Country Report 2009,” which was released last June by Vice President Hamid Ansari. “I think the report and the summit are very crucial; he should have been in the loop of that,” Behar told Governance Now.

Pronab Sen, prinicipal adviser at the Planning Commission, chose not to defend the government's cavalier attitude. “What can I say. These are the questions that the Prime Minister can only answer,” Sen told Governance Now.

At the August 19 meeting, the civil society groups, led by Supriya Sule, MP, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), expressed their dissatisfaction over being left out of the process of reviewing the progress on achieving the MDGs.

Members from Wada Na Todo Abhiyan, Centre for Legislative Research and Advocacy, Oxfam India, Right to Food Campaign, United Nations Millennium Campaign, etc. were part of the delegation.                                                                          

Sen said: "The job of the MDGs reviewers is just reporting. It is a statistical tracking. The consultation with the civil society groups is critically important when you are talking about intervention.”

“Ten years after the signing of the Millennium Declaration, India appears to be seriously off-track on a number of MDGs including those on hunger, infant mortality, maternal mortality, and women’s empowerement,” said Nisha Agrawal, CEO of Oxfam India.

WNTA's rejoinder to India’s country report on MDGs 2009 shows seven states, including Jhakhand, Orissa, Bihar, Chhatisgarh, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, lag far behind the MDG landmarks that should have been achieved. “Our performance is even worse than Sub-Saharan Africa,” the report said.

The UN Millennium Campaign (UNMC) launched today www.noiseagainstpoverty.org, a website that starts the campaign ‘Stand Up and take Action’ aimed at mobilising support for eradicating poverty in India. “2010 marks the 10th year of the MDGs which were formulated in 2000. With only five years to fulfill these goals, it becomes imperative for all stakeholders to work together to accelerate progress on the goals,” said Minar Pimple, regional director and spokesman of the UNMC.  

The target year for achieving MDGs is 2015.