The Millennium Development Goals

The new millennium opened on a hopeful note. With majority of the world’s economies thriving, including India, China, (and even many African nations with its unrelieved crisis) the spread of democracy and possibility of mobilizing new technologies to fight AIDS malaria and other diseases gave hope.

It was in September 2000 the most vivid reflection of this hope came to pass at the United Nations Millennium assembly. This was the largest gathering of world leaders in history. One hundred and forty seven heads of state and the remaining representatives of the 192 member states came to New York and at this historic UN meeting expressed their global determination to end some of the most challenging and vexing problems inherited from the 20th century facing the world today. They conveyed hope that issues like extreme poverty, disease and environmental degradation could be overcome with the wealth, new technology and global awareness which we had entered the twenty first century.

It was here the one of the most important and significant global statement was created, granting hope and a fostering a goal to unite, and consequently solve some of the worlds most pressing and urgent concerns. Inspiring hope that the world, complicated and divided as it is, can come together to take on great challenges. How? By striving to achieve the Millennium Development Goals set out at this UN Millennium Assembly.

The Goals:

Goal 1: Eradicate Extreme Hunger and Poverty

Goal 2: Achieve Universal Primary Education

Goal 3: Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women

Goal 4: Reduce Child Mortality

Goal 5: Improve Maternal Health

Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and other diseases

Goal 7: Ensure Environmental Sustainability

Goal 8: Develop a Global Partnership for Development

 

While we are almost half way through the timeline for the goals, the progress towards achieving them have been less then successful. There is still time to achieve the Millennium Development Goals though. Even in the poorest countries, the Goals can be achieved by 2015. But the window of opportunity is closing. A major global policy breakthrough is needed in 2005 & 2006 to get the world’s poorest countries on track to meeting the Goals.

More than one billion people - one-sixth of the world’s population - live in extreme poverty, lacking the safe
water, proper nutrition, basic health care and social services needed to survive. This means a single episode of disease, an ill-timed pregnancy, a drought or a crop-destroying pest can be the difference between life and death. In many of the poorest countries, life expectancy is half of that in the high-income world—40 years instead of 80 years.

The consequences of this poverty reach far beyond the afflicted societies. Poverty, inequality and disease are chief causes of violent conflict, civil war and state failures. A world with extreme poverty is a world of insecurity.

The Millennium Project recommended a global strategy to help nations turn the tide against poverty. Using the targets outlined in the Millennium Development Goals, the Project’s policy recommendations are centered on:

·        Planning for the 2015 time horizon

·        Pursuing the Millennium Development Goals as minimum policy targets in developing countries

·        Specifying the ways donor countries need to follow through on their aid, trade and debt relief commitments to coherently support the world’s poorest countries to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

If, in 2006, the world adopts and follows a plan to meet the Goals, we can arrive in 2015 with unprecedented success in reducing poverty, disease, hunger and discrimination in the poorest countries. In doing so, we will not only save tens of millions of lives, we will help the world achieve the peace and security it craves.