"We should not look at where we are and assess ourselves on that basis," noted Massaquoi. "We should look at where we are coming from, we should also look at impediments we have overcome because some of these countries have had wars and conflicts where everything was either destroyed or stagnated for a while, so when we look at all of that together and we see some progress, we feel very optimistic that by 2015 we'll be able to obtain some of those goals if not all."

Both the AU and the U.N. are looking at 2015 as the benchmark year to reassess the effectiveness of their two programs.