Report: Burundi lags behind UN’s Millennium Development Goals

Recently, a Washington think tank published a report that Burundi is one of two east African countries that are lagging behind in achieving the UN’s Millennium Development Goals.  The report, whose link is attached below, states that while Burundi has made significant gains on school education, they have fallen behind in achieving the MDG’s for poverty reduction, gender equality, maternal and child mortality, access to safe drinking water, undernourishment and prevalence of HIV/aid rates.  The report also compares Burundi’s progress with those of other African countries.  The highest rated African countries are Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Malawi and Uganda

Report Link: http://www.ngonewsafrica.org/?p=3344

The release of this report comes at an encouraging time for LifeNet.  We are currently working to roll out our Social Return on Investment (SROI) tool that will be used to track our progress as it relates to major social indices, including the MDGs.  A portion of our SROI tool will measure our success based upon the MDG’s related to Maternal & Child Health (MDG 1, 4, 5, 6, and 8).

We plan to collect patient data from our clinic partners and report on the following indicators:

• # of mothers receiving prenatal checkups
• # of babies delivered in clinic
• # of vaccinations administered
• # of maternity wards added
• % of maternity ward utilization

Other inputs gathered by our SROI tool will include:

• Jobs created
• Patient Visits
• Increased capacity for healthcare workers
• Increased capacity for our clinic partners

Over time we will use the data generated by the SROI tool to perform detailed analysis of our partnership program, ask hard questions and find ways to better serve our clinic partners and their patients.