General Claim:
Recently, Mr. Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) was quoted to have said that China, India, and Vietnam mainstreamed Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in their development agenda (the 33 seconds video is available on YouTube) and were able to pull 439 million, 269 million and over 45 million people respectively out of poverty. He spoke to Northern elders at the Arewa House in Kaduna, Kaduna State.

Background
In 2000, 189 member countries of the United Nations General Assembly agreed on the Millennium Declaration which set out key issues facing the World and highlighted appropriate responses to these issues. These declarations are known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

According to the World Bank, the member nations agreed to focus on eight areas of concerns which include: (i) eradicate extreme poverty and hunger (ii) achieve universal primary education (iii) promote gender equality and empower women iv) reduce child mortality (v) improve maternal health (vi) combat HIV/AIDS and other diseases (vi) ensure environmental sustainability (vii) and develop a global partnership for sustainable development.

Meanwhile, the United Nation Development Programme (UNDP) had chronicled the achievements recorded so far by its member nations. The report based on the poverty eradication index was released in 2015, and indicates extreme poverty has declined significantly in nearly half of the population in the developing world between 1990 and 2015. This was corroborated by another report on MDGs released by UNICEF in 2015 as well as World Bank’s 2018 release on poverty reduction levels in these countries.

Mr. Peter Obi’s Statement:
In the video, Peter Obi said:… I want number one of the MDG. The only thing Nigeria signed in 2000 is MDG. It was MDG, that China put into its Millennium Development Agenda and was able to pull 439 million people out of poverty. It was MDG that India mainstream into its Millennium Development Agenda that pulled 269 million people out of poverty. That’s what Vietnam used to pull over 45million people out of poverty.

Verification

Claim 1
That China pulled 439 million people out of poverty

This claim was verified by assessing the UNICEF report. In 2015, UNICEF had published a report and another document on the successes on the MDGs recorded by China from 2000 to 2015. The report shows that China had lifted over 439 million people out of poverty, implementing the MDG goals, by reducing at least two -third of the under-five mortality rate, reducing by at least three-quarters of the maternal mortality rate and increasing access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation. According to the document,

‘’China’s poor population has been reduced by 439 million from 689 million in 1990 to 250 million in 2011’’. This report corroborates Peter Obi’s assertion and is thereby adjudged to be correct.

See the screenshot of the document below:

Claim 2:

That India pulled 269 people out of poverty

Verification

On the progress made by India in the implementation of the MDGs, our fact-checking team assessed Business Standard which reported that, with 21.9% of India’s population below the poverty line, India ‘’has already reduced poverty level by half’’.

Corroborating the above statistics, the United Nations Development Programme released its 2019 multidimensional poverty index and reported by the Global Development Commons. In that report, statistics show that 271 million people were pulled out of poverty by 2015 in India out of over 640 million poor people in 2005/2006.

Contrary to Mr. Obi’s assertion, the figure in India was off the mark by 2 million. He stated 269 million instead of 271. But it is true that several millions of people were lifted out of poverty as referenced by him.

Mr. Peter Obi’s claim is therefore adjudged incorrect to the extent that the figure is inaccurate but correct to a fact that it contributed to the reduction of poverty as claimed

Claim 3:

That Vietnam pulled over 45 million people out of poverty

Verification

To confirm this claim, we laid our hands on an analysis by the Borgen Magazine and the ICIR based on the 2018 report released by the World Bank. Findings show that Vietnam lifted over 45 million people out of poverty between 2002 and 2018. These confirm Mr. Peter Obi’s claim in the video as Correct. According to the World Bank report, the poverty level drastically reduced from over 70% to below 6% within the period.

Conclusion
Mr. Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, claimed that each of China, India and Vietnam mainstreamed MDGs into their Millennium Development Agenda and was able to pull 439 million, 269 million and over 45 million people out of poverty. Our investigations show different ratings for these claims, hence, we have categorised them into three different layers.

Claim 1: China mainstreamed MDGs and pulled 439 million people out of poverty (True)

Claim 2: India mainstreamed MDGs and pulled 269 people out of poverty (Incorrect). United Nations’ data shows it was 271 million people, and not 269, indicating a difference of 2 million people from Peter Obi’s data.

Claim 3: Vietnam mainstreamed and pulled over 45 million people out of poverty (True)

Editor’s Note
NDR shall fact-check claims by the 18 presidential candidates from time to time.