Even if many countries are even managing to achieve the water or the sanitation target, the truth is that there are systematically patterns of exclusion inside countries that have not diminished over the past 15 years – sometimes on the contrary they have deepened themselves.
Though the steepest declines happened first in wealthy countries like Japan, Italy, Germany and Spain, even many developing countries have seen their fertility rates head downward.
It means that India will probably continue to trail not just South-East Asia, but even many African countries in matters of health and education.
"It is a disaster of a scale that is so monumental that even many developed countries would have had a very hard time coping with something like this," Ajay Chhibber, the United Nations Development Program's director of the Bureau for Asia and the Pacific, said in an interview on Tuesday evening.
I don't think that's going to happen this year, and here's why: With any modern cellphone, you can send an SMS to any other cellphone on any other network in America, and even many other countries.
Even though many countries in the region are classified as "middle-income", economic distribution is highly skewed.
Relations with its neighbour in Brussels, the European Union, are paralysed even though many countries are members of both.
The O.E.C.D.'s secretary general, Ángel Gurría, urged members to "go structural" at the same time, even while many countries were mired in austerity programs.
He goes to great lengths to disparage the idea of an elected head of state as impractical for Britain, even though many countries function perfectly well with one.
The rules at the temporary tribunals and at the permanent International Criminal Court, all created in the past two decades, say that representing oneself at trial is a fundamental right, even though many countries do not permit this in their national systems.
