Q & A

What are the “Quick Wins”?

Quick Wins are actions that can be taken immediately within existing capabilities to produce dramatic results within three to five years. Although far from comprehensive, some Quick Wins could bring vital gains in well-being to millions of people and start countries on the path to the Goals. Some of the Quick Wins include:

• Eliminating school and uniform fees to ensure that no children are kept out of school because their families cannot pay. Lost revenues should be replaced with more equitable and efficient sources of finance, including donor assistance.

• Providing impoverished farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa with affordable replenishments of soil nitrogen and other soil nutrients.

• Providing free school meals for all children using locally produced foods with take-home rations.

• Designing community nutrition programs for pregnant and lactating women and children under five that support breastfeeding, provide access to locally produced complementary foods and, where needed, provide micronutrient (especially zinc and vitamin A) supplementation.

• Providing regular annual deworming to all schoolchildren in affected areas to improve health and educational outcomes.

• Training large numbers of village workers in health, farming, and infrastructure (in one-year programs) to ensure basic expertise and services in rural communities.

• Distributing free, long-lasting, insecticidetreated bed-nets to all children in malariaendemic zones to cut decisively the burden of malaria.

• Eliminating user fees for basic health services in all developing countries, financed by increased domestic and donor resources for health.

• Expanding access to sexual and reproductive health information and services, including family planning and contraceptive information and services, and closing existing funding gaps for supplies and logistics.

• Setting up funding to finance communitybased slum upgrading and earmark idle public land for low-cost housing.

• Providing access to electricity, water, sanitation, and the Internet for all hospitals, schools, and other social service institutions using off-grid diesel generators, solar panels, or other appropriate technologies.

• Reforming and enforcing legislation guaranteeing women property and inheritance rights.

• Launching national campaigns to reduce violence against women.

• Establishing, in each country, an office of science advisor to the president or prime minister to consolidate the role of science in national policymaking.

• Empowering women to play a central role in formulating and monitoring MDG-based poverty reduction strategies and other critical policy reform processes, particularly at the level of local governments.

• Providing community-level support to plant trees to provide soil nutrients, fuelwood, shade, fodder, watershed protection, windbreak, and timber.

These Quick Wins are not the only interventions needed to reach the Goals- but they are actions with very high potential short-term impact that can be immediately implemented. Other interventions are more complicated and will take a decade of effort or have delayed benefits. The world cannot afford to let another year go by without investing in these simple and proven strategies.