Can Africa fulfill the Millennium Development Goals by 2015? That's a question that is often asked anytime there is a discussion about MDGs. It was on many lips during the celebration of the International Women's day on March 8. Behind the question of course is a lot of cynicism by the questioner (s). There is a generalized doubt that the MDGs, may not be met on schedule in a majority of African states. Official reports and anecdotal evidence suggest that at current pace even by 2050 the goals may still remain unmet by these states.

The situation is not helped by the fact that most of the reports available are usually aggregated. Hence the negative conclusion that Africa's progress is at best very slow and patchy. Like all generalizations and aggregated statistics they hide the specific, more positive picture of steady progress on a number of the goals in quite a few countries across Africa. It also panders to the fashionable Afro pessimism that caricatures events in Africa promoting embedded attitudes of 'Hopeless Africa'. 'Helpless people and continent' that needs the help and handout of everybody else except its own peoples and leaders.

It is rather late in the day to be asking if Africa can meet the MDGs or not. Still more pointless are the criticisms of the goals as being too minimal. All of them are more than 7 years out of date. We are half way through and those questions are unhelpful especially among campaigners who are committed to holding their governments to account for these commitments. The problem with asking wrong questions is that you get wrong answers that may divert you from the tasks in hand. A more proactive way of looking at this is to ask what can be done to fill the obvious gaps that still exist that may prevent countries from meeting the goals. The desirability of the goals is no longer debatable. Meeting them will not hurt anyone. If you can half poverty nobody will stop you from eradicating it.

Answering the more proactive type of questions also require one to look at the progress that has been achieved instead of just looking for the challenges. An appreciation of progress so far will then open one's eyes to the challenges of what remains to be done. Then we ask what more needs to be done to make sure that there are no excuses for not meeting these goals and even surpassing them in many cases.

Almost in all African countries there has been remarkable progress in education in terms of enrolment in schools. There is universal access to education across the countries that have allowed millions of girls and boys who would not have seen the inside of classrooms to do so. Ghana, Uganda, Rwanda, Nigeria, Burkina Faso and others are good example of the rapid enrolment in schools. On Child mortality Malawi is only second to Costa Rica in the dramatic drop in Child deaths (over 30%) in the past three years. The same Malawi that used to rank as 'poorest country in the world', a country that was recipient of Food Aid a few years ago has now become food donor to some of its poorer neighbours including Zimbabwe. On controlling the spread of HIV/Aids Uganda used to be a lone star but a few other countries have become even more aggressive in fighting the disease.

Huge numbers of African children today have better chances of survival than 10 years ago. More and More are likely to live beyond their 5th birthdays and have hope going to primary school and even better chances of going on higher education as countries upscale their investments in education and move beyond universal primary education to secondary education.

They are not all smooth scaling. There are issues around quality, retention in schools, rate of drop out between boys and girls, etc however quantitative changes are important steps as countries deal with quality issues. We cannot say that more children should not go to school until all schools are of the same quality. Both go hand in hand.

The external environment is also changing as international partners are held to more scrutiny and challenged to walk the walk as fast as they do the talk. Debt relief has not been universal and a majority of African states have not become beneficiaries but the minority (Uganda, Mozambique, Ghana, Rwanda, Malawi, Zambia, etc) that have got it have are generally transforming the gains into meaningful dividends on a number of MDGs. Those not qualified like Nigeria but renegotiated discounts on the National Debt have increased the country's financial credibility but also it now has a virtual fund of more than 1 billion Dollars that is devoted to MDGs. In many countries the MDGs are being localized with targets that are more ambitious than those of the Millennium Declaration.

So the question is not whether we can meet the goals or not but why this country is doing well on X number of goals and country Y is not performing. By concentrating on can't meet it we are letting political leaders off the hook of accountability for commitments they made voluntarily to their own citizens. 7 years may not be long but it is certainly long enough for all the countries to change their policy direction and resource allocation that prioritize the needs of the poor and marginalized and accelerate the fulfillment of the MDGs. African citizens have a duty to remind their leaders about these commitments and be vigilant in demanding that they are met and even go beyond them where possible. If the goals are not met it will not just because of government insensitivity but also citizen complacency or indifference.

Dr Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is the Deputy Director for the UN Millennium Campaign in Africa.