Posted on September 23, 2008 - by Frank

Millennium Development Goals - High Level Event

“The year 2008 should mark a turning point in progress towards the MDGs. …Together with the President of the General Assembly, I am convening a special High-level Event on the MDGs on 25 September in New York. This gathering will bring together world leaders, representatives of the private sector and our civil society partners to discuss specific ways to energize our efforts. I expect the meeting will also send a strong message that governments are ready to rise to the financing for development challenge. I look forward to working with Member States to make the September event an unqualified success. Together, we must make this year one of unprecedented progress for the poorest of the poor, so that we can realize a better, more prosperous future for all.”

– UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, 1 April 2008
(remarks to the General Assembly)

That High-Level Event is to take place this week.

For those of you not familiar with the Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s), they are as follows:

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
* Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than one dollar a day.
* Achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all, including women and young people.
* Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people who suffer from hunger.
2. Achieve universal primary education
* Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling.
3. Promote gender equality and empower women
* Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015.
4. Reduce child mortality
* Reduce by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate.
5. Improve maternal health
* Reduce by three quarters, between 1990 and 2015, the maternal mortality ratio.
* Achieve, by 2015, universal access to reproductive health.
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
* Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS.
* Achieve, by 2010, universal access to treatment for HIV/AIDS for all those who need it.
* Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases.
7. Ensure environmental sustainability
* Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes; reverse loss of environmental resources.
* Reduce biodiversity loss, achieving, by 2010, a significant reduction in the rate of loss.
* Halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation (for more information see the entry on water supply).
* By 2020, to have achieved a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum-dwellers.
8. Develop a global partnership for development
* Develop further an open trading and financial system that is rule-based, predictable and non-discriminatory. Includes a commitment to good governance, development and poverty reduction—nationally and internationally.
* Address the special needs of the least developed countries. This includes tariff and quota free access for their exports; enhanced programme of debt relief for heavily indebted poor countries; and cancellation of official bilateral debt; and more generous official development assistance for countries committed to poverty reduction.
* Address the special needs of landlocked and small island developing States.
* Deal comprehensively with the debt problems of developing countries through national and international measures in order to make debt sustainable in the long term.
* In cooperation with developing countries, develop and implement strategies for decent and productive work for youth.
* In cooperation with pharmaceutical companies, provide access to affordable essential drugs in developing countries.
* In cooperation with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies, especially information and communications.

Source

The meeting will act as a summit of leaders to assess progress towards the achievement of the goals and reinvigorate the commitment of U.N member states to achieve those goals. Every single member state of the U.N signed on to the United Nations Millennium Declaration (PDF) in 2000.

The achievement of MDG’s faces an unforeseen challenge in the form of the current global food crisis and the latest market crunch being experienced in the financial sectors of the west. The commitment needs to remain strong and this meeting should provide a much needed boost in the midst of such turmoil.

There are lobby and public awareness groups that exist to put pressure on U.N member states to keep their commitments towards the goals - some are yet to reach their commitments.

Check out these organisations to get involved:

Micah Challenge - an alliance of Evangelical organizations who have come together in support of the MDG’s.

Point Seven - A New Zealand organization bringing together various aid agencies to put pressure on the NZ government to reach it’s promise of giving 0.7% of our Gross National Income to international aid. Currently NZ is well below that.

The Millennium Development Goals can be so much more than a feel good shot in the arm for the world. With the member states of the U.N backing such an endeavour, rather than just paying it lip service, real change is/will be achieved.

Follow these sites to see what comes out of the High-Level Event this week.

MDG Blog
Gateway to the UN Systems Work on the MDG’s

Check out these sites/tools related to the MDG’s:

Ideas for Development
The MDG Monitor (a great tool for nation specific monitoring of efforts towards achieving the goals)
The Good News (a downloadable Powerpoint presentation from Micah Challenge on current progress)