A new policy brief released by United Nations Universityâs International Network on Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH) indicates that the provision of clean water and improved sanitation are the interventions most likely to have a significant impact on global poverty. The brief, Safe Water as......
A couple is traveling across Canada to show off a film they made about Rwanda. The film focuses on the country's path to meeting the Millennium Development Goals by 2015, which they are on target for. Alex and Meghan Nicholls are showing their film to churches and youth groups across Canada. The Lethbridge Herald profiled the couple when they made a stop in Lethbridge, Ontario. “A lot of the films I was seeing in school were very gritty and real. They tended to focus on the negative. I really felt to the need to make a film that was real, but hopeful. There’s a huge message of hope,” he continued, adding the gist of the story was the people themselves — how they are adjusting, their personal stories and what sort of programs they are running to address the Millennium Development...
I thought that this was only true for the US.A survey released today by an economic think tank says that a majority of Cambodian people don't know what the Millennium Development Goals are. The survey from the Economic Institute of Cambodia says that 59 percent of the countries people have never heard of the MDGs.Nguon Sovan a writer for the Phnom Penh Post, reports on this analysis of the survey."The study found that the awareness about the CMDG at the local level was remarkably low, as most respondents were either not aware of them or had only a limited understanding," the survey said."Fifty-nine percent of respondents had never heard of them."The survey also found that "only two percent of respondents could correctly explain the CMDG and their purpose". While awareness was low, almost...
While many food staples have gone up in price, the potato's price has stayed relatively the same. The United Nations has been promoting the potato in what they declared the "International Year of the Potato 2008" The UN feels that spuds can play a huge role in providing food security to the under developed world.In this story from the Voice Of America, reporter Lisa Schlein show how the potato can help draw us closer to the Millennium Development Goals.To many people, the potato is an object of fun. Couch potato comes immediately to mind. But, the United Nations thinks the spud is a stud as far as it's ability to feed and preserve the planet. It goes so far as to say that the potato can help save the lives of many of the world's poor and hungry. Paolo Garonna is Officer in Charge of the...
A lot of focus is put on the year 2015, because that is the year that the Millennium Development Goals were supposed to be met. But, were at the half way point from the millennium and most of the goals are not half way to achievement. So it's clear that the work is going to continue well beyond the year 2015. What is the world going to do at that point? We came across a good commentary that addresses this issue in The Guatemala News. The commentary was written by Jean-Michel Severino who works as CEO of the French Development Agency.It is now halfway to the target date of 2015 for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) - the ambitious blueprint, backed by the entire development community, for development in the world's poorest countries. In the wake of the global financial crisis, which...
A film that compiles different stories about each of the Millennium Development Goals is making film festivals now. The film premiered in Rome last Thursday.The film titled '8' gathers eight different film-makes to do a story on a different MDG. The film is premiering with a little controversy. The United Nations originally planned to sponsor the film, but has now withdrawn it's support. The withdrawal is due to concern with a story that the UN fears may be insulting to Islam. News 24 reports on what the story depicts, and why it caused the UN worry. But it is Indian director Mira Nair's take on gender equality that sparked a row with the United Nations Development Programme, which eventually withdrew its support from the project.Nair's short film portrays a Muslim woman living in New...
Out of the eight Millennium Development Goals, Kenya will only be able to meet 2 of them by the target year of 2015. Wycliffe Oparanya, a minister for development for Kenya, gave the update on meeting the goals in a speech Wednesday. The goals that Kenya says they will be able to meet are universal primary education and battling diseases like HIV/AIDS and malaria. For not being able to meet the others, Kenya blames the lack of funds from the developed world. Only Sweden, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg give the amount aid that is needed for all developing countries to meet the Development Goals. Our snippet contains what Kenya is still lacking. Alphonce Shiundu And Benjamin Muindi, writers for the Nation tell us what Kenya still has to take care of. We found this story...
This Friday, Australian corporate leaders will meet to discuss how they can reduce poverty.Australia as a whole tries to take a lead in developing the whole Asia Pacific region. This alliance of business leaders was formed in 2006 to try to do more to develop the entire area. The try to combine meeting the Millenium Development Goals with business sucsess.Anneli Knight gives the details of the summit in this article from Australia's Business Day. Australia's corporate leaders will congregate in Melbourne tomorrow for the Business for Millennium Development summit. The key aims of this meeting are to raise awareness in the Australian business community about the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, which focus on reducing poverty and improving human rights.Macquarie Bank, ANZ,...
Billions of dollars are being used to fend of another great depression. That means aid to to poor countries is dwindling. In fact, before the credit crunch even began the aid was shrinking.From a forum on international hunger, the founder of U.N. Millennium Goal Campaign spoke up on the decrease in aid and it's effects on the poor. Svetlana Kovalyova from Reuters UK received these words from Eveline Herfkens."If everybody lives up to their promise, they (the goals) are still reachable. If not, we are in a big trouble," Eveline Herfkens said on the sidelines of an international food forum."When the financial markets sneeze, the poor get pneumonia.""I really would hope that our finance ministers who find trillions of dollars to beef up their own systems will not forget about a few billions...
0.7% is all it would take. Just 0.7% of the gross national product, or total of all the goods and services a country makes. That's all it would take to meet the goal of lifting half of the world people out of poverty.Yet the US only gives .22%, Canada only gives .33%, the UK .48%A new study out today shows a majority of people in the developed world believes we should give more.The study conducted by World Public Opinion asked something like the following... If you gave x amount of dollars knowing it would lift half of the people worldwide out of poverty, knowing the rest of the developed world would pay a similar amount, would you do it?A large majority said yes,The survey also asked if you thought that the developed world had a responsibility to help the undeveloped.Here is a snippet...
The UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT) has issued Tackling a global crisis: International Year of Sanitation 2008 (full text, pdf, 1.81 MB). The brochure provides an overview of the issues related to providing basic sanitation to all and includes a bibliography of cited references.
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Last week, we posted a story about comments from the president of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir. Yes, the same one who is committing genocide to the people in Darfur. I thought it was weird that he would show his face in a summit, and make charges against the international community. I also thought it was weird that he was the chair of this group's summit.We found this commentary on the international community turning a blind eye to the killings in Sudan. In fact, the international groups still put this killer in charge of things. And some very important things at that. from The New Republic But the largest and most influential group of developing nations has added an ill-considered and wholly gratuitous burden to the challenges of the MDG: they have selected the Sudan government, which continues...
from the Independent, UgandaOxfam International’s head of research, author Duncan Green visited Uganda last week to launch and discuss his 2008 publication From Poverty to Power; How Active Citizens and Effective States can Change the World. He spoke to The Independent.When did writing this book start and what is the inspiration for it?Writing began in 2006. We had the idea of building an NGO narrative which links current debates with Oxfam’s experience on the ground in over 70 countries.You suggest in your book that big International organisations like UN, Oxfam, WTO, WHO G8, don’t rule the world, but the UN and America influence the world in different ways, how is this?Development is primarily national, based on the interaction between citizens and states. Rich countries and the...
A new report on Organic Agriculture and Food Security in Africa has been issued by the UNEP-UNCTAD Capacity-building Task Force on Trade, Environment and Development (full text, pdf, 463 KB). The report discusses the many factors related to food security and the impact of organic agriculture on foo......
The Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) has developed a shared database, CoATS â Coordinating AIDS Technical Support, to provide information to technical support providers about what kind of expertise has been provided to a specific country, by whom and with what results. According to the UNAI......
from the International Herald Tribune World leaders pushed Thursday for stronger action to reduce global poverty as financial turmoil spreads and high food prices threaten to aggravate the problems of the poor.Addressing world leaders at a summit meeting on poverty, Secretary General Ban Ki Moon of the United Nations called on countries to be bold and generous.With sufficient funds and political will, the fight against poverty, hunger, disease and inequality could be won, he said.Eight years after its members set a goal of halving global poverty by 2015, the United Nations was taking stock and discussing ways to accelerate progress.While there has been progress in some countries, the United Nations has said that not a single African country is on track to reach all the targets set out in...
from All Africa Byline: Rose MestikaAddis Ababa,- The Poverty Action Network of Civil Society Organizations in Ethiopia (PANE) announced plans to campaign in support of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and against poverty and inequality from October 17-19.The organization called on the developed nations to respect the promises they pledged to fight poverty and help alleviate the suffering of poor people in developing countries.The three days will be marked by meeting with Ambassadors, government officials, civil society members and others, PANE, collection of over 90civil society organizations representing various sectors and spheres disclosed yesterday.The campaign will be having three main aims; to request for debt cancellation, to request for more and better aid and to have fair...
from CNN Global activist and U2 frontman Bono attended the United Nations General Assembly in New York to push world leaders to join his ONE campaign in fighting disease, poverty, and hunger. He talked to CNN's John Roberts on "American Morning" about recent successes and what's next. ROBERTS: All this talk has been about the economy collapsing, $700 billion bailout. Congress is absolutely absorbed with that. Did that in any way affect what you were trying to do this week? Are people more focused on this economy than in helping out developing nations?BONO: We got good news this week. I know normally I'm on your program with bad news -- the whingeing rock star -- but it's great. There's a disease, malaria -- it's 3,000 African kids die every day of mosquito bites. Sounds mad, but it's...
from the Age THE people are desperately hungry. Two thousand of them queue from early morning to see Australian nurse Alana Baker and her co-workers for the chance to escape from the grip of acute malnutrition.Drizzling rain and cool temperatures do not deter them nor does the crowd-control man whipping people back into line with a branch. Their babies cry. They wait.Ms Baker, 28, is in the second week of a three-month mission in southern Ethiopia with Medecins Sans Frontieres Belgium, working as an outreach nutritional nurse.Thousands of people, mainly farmers, travel up to 250 kilometres to reach the mobile clinic where Ms Baker and up to 10 other staff work.The team visits five locations each week, testing for malaria and screening the people for severe and moderately acute...
from the Los Angeles Times By Richard Boudreaux, UNITED NATIONS -- It's been a bad week for a global anti-poverty summit. Even before Wall Street's turmoil damped the generosity of donor countries, economists were predicting that food and fuel price shocks would drive 100 million people into destitution across the world.But Thorleif Enger and Michael Landau see opportunity amid the gloom. They have launched investments aimed at helping some of Africa's poorest countries ease the crisis by producing more food.Enger's Norwegian fertilizer giant, Yara International, and Landau's New York-based financial services company, Map International, announced the ventures this week in response to an appeal to corporate chiefs to join a United Nations campaign to reduce poverty in Asia, Africa and...
from the New York Times By NEIL MacFARQUHARUNITED NATIONS — Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, announced on Thursday that the organization had received an additional $16 billion in pledges to fight a host of global ills like hunger and malaria, calling it an important signal that the world financial crisis would not impair aid efforts.“That expression of the global commitment is all the more remarkable because it comes against the background of a global crisis,” Mr. Ban said at a news conference.But his optimism was not shared universally, with some other senior officials suggesting that the ripple effects from the credit crisis would eventually force governments to cut back the amount of money they actually donate.The new pledges emerged from a special series of...
from the ABC Australia's private sector has been being encouraged to take a bigger role in ending global poverty at the launch of Make Poverty History's 2008 campaign in Sydney.The launch was timed to coincide with the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals Summit, a meeting of more than 180 UN member nations in New York.The chairman of Business for Millennium Development, Simon McKeon, says businesses need to think outside the square and invest in projects to end poverty in developing countries."There is money to be made in poverty and I don't think we should be embarrassed about that," he said."Tens of millions of the poorest people in the world over the last two decades have been lifted out of abject poverty simply by the workings of the market."Many of them are in China and we...
The Global Campaign for Health Millennium Development Goals has issued its first year report (full text, pdf, 485 KB). The Campaign was launched last year by several heads of state to provide flexible support to national and local leaders to help communities reach the health related Millennium Deve......
from AFP via Google UNITED NATIONS (AFP) — UN chief Ban Ki-moon was Thursday to host a summit here to galvanize world support for achieving key poverty-reduction goals by 2015 despite soaring energy and food prices compounded by the financial crisis.Nearly 100 world leaders are to join top private sector officials, including billionaire Microsoft founder Bill Gates, foundations and civil society, to pledge new commitments to revive the flagging battle to the achieve Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).Among those expected at the plenary session and 40 partners events on malaria, education and health will be British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, his Chinese counterpart Wen Jiabao, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, World Health Organization head Margaret Chan, World Bank...
from the Toronto Star by Dave ToycenCanadian elections are times to make promises and, hopefully, times to keep promises that are on the verge of being broken.Tomorrow, Canada will have another critical opportunity to keep its promises as more than 100 world leaders gather at UN headquarters in New York City. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon is convening them for a high-level event to re-energize their earlier commitment to meet the eight Millennium Development Goals by 2015.Reducing by 50 per cent the number of people living in extreme poverty and cutting the child mortality rate by two-thirds are among the goals that leaders set in 2000 and promised to fulfill.While some headway has been made since 191 countries, including Canada, established the goals in 2000, the current economic...
from the Sydney Morning Herald by Kirsty NeedhamAFRICA will take centre stage at a United Nations forum this week as world leaders mark the halfway point to the Millennium Development Goals' target date of eradicating poverty by 2015, amid spiralling food and fuel prices.The Pacific region is also lagging badly in meeting the goals, and Australia's approach towards aid for the region has again been criticised.Just before a September 25 UN meeting at which governments are expected to increase their commitments to meeting the millennium goals, a Lowy Institute report says Australian aid is ineffective in helping Pacific countries meet the goals.Fifty per cent of the population of Papua New Guinea live below the poverty line, compared to 41 per cent in sub-Sahara Africa, the report says....
UN Economic and Social Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (UN ECLAC) released Millennium Development Goals. Progress towards the right to health in Latin America and the Caribbean(full-text, 9.1 Mb). The report examines the achievements and obstacles towards meeting health-related Millen......
Progress for children: a report card on maternal mortality issued by UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) claims that "each year, more than half a million women die from pregnancy-related causes and an estimated 10 million experience injuries, infections, disease or disability that can cause lifelong sufferi......
from AFP via Google UNITED NATIONS (AFP) — World leaders meet here Monday to assess Africa's development at a time when the resource-rich continent, reeling from high energy and food prices, lags behind the rest of the world in meeting poverty-reduction goals.Representatives of more than 160 countries, among them French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, and UN chief Ban Ki-moon are to attend the high-level gathering.The meeting, which kicks off at 9:00 am (1300 GMT), comes a day before the 192-member UN General Assembly is to open its annual general debate.Last week, Cheick Sidi Diarra, Ban Ki-moon's special adviser on Africa, said Monday's meeting would serve to help streamline actions and upgrade priorities toward implementing the New Partnership for...
from Reuters...