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 Reuters...
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 The Age by Tim CostelloNEXT week political leaders will meet in New York to try to get the world's assault on poverty back on track. No doubt few business leaders in Australia will pay much heed to the United Nations General Assembly on the Millennium Development Goals. They should. The outcome of these goals will have a profound impact on corporate Australia.Amid the turmoil gripping world economic markets triggered by the credit crunch, it is very easy to miss the importance of this event. But the fight against poverty has great implications for the future growth of the global economy and nowhere will the impact be felt more than in Asia.It is why Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is right to take a leadership role in attending the NY meeting and why those critical of his decision to miss...
from Foreign Policy in Focus by Joseph Kaifala When it comes to saving Africa, there's no shortage of ideas in the West. Most committees organized in the West on African issues are often run by Africans who have been away from the continent for decades and have lost contact with reality on the ground. Ideas conceived in the West, such as the Millennium Development Goals and other HIV/AIDS initiatives, often encounter difficult challenges when implemented in Africa. This is because beneficiaries in individual African countries are sometimes not consulted about solutions to their problems and ideas are often implemented universally across the continent, ignoring the cultural, economic, and geographical diversity.The President's Malaria Initiative (PMI), launched by President George W. Bush...
from the Economic Times, India UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Thursday unveiled a report warning that poverty reduction goals agreed by world leaders eight years ago may not be met by the 2015 target date, particularly in Africa.The UN's Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Report 2008 was released ahead of a summit meeting on the MDGs, scheduled for September 25 on the margins of the UN General Assembly session.It noted that improved data from the World Bank confirmed that between 1990 and 2005, the number of people living in extreme poverty dropped from 1.8 to 1.4 billion and that the 1990 global poverty rate was likely to be halved by 2015."But while most of this decline occurred in East Asia, particularly China, other regions had much smaller decreases in the poverty rate and only modest...
from Reuters India By Melanie LeeNEW DELHI - Asia is making progress in reducing extreme poverty but faces an uphill battle to improve child nutrition and lower child mortality rates, the United Nations said on Thursday.The U.N.'s annual Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) report, released on Thursday in New Delhi, showed East Asia and Southeast Asia making the most progress in reducing poverty levels, although South Asia lagged behind.In South Asia, progress was slow in India, with the number of people living in extreme poverty rising by 20 million between 1990 and 2005, the report said. But it did manage to lower its poverty levels to 41 percent from 52 percent in the same period, officials said.The World Bank defines extreme poverty as living with less than $1.25 a day and poverty as...
Millennium Development Report 2008 was officially launched today. The report (full-text, 3.28 MB, or in other languages) summarizes progress towards the eight Millennium Development goals in each of the ten major geographic regions. The assessment is based on data available as of June 2008 on all of......
The report (full-text, 1.59 MB) of the MDG Gap Task Force claims "that while there has been progress on several counts, important gaps remain in delivering on the global commitments in the areas of aid, trade, debt relief, and access to new technologies and affordable essential medicines."
More ab......
The report (full-text, 1.59 MB) of the MDG Gap Task Force claims "that while there has been progress on several counts, important gaps remain in delivering on the global commitments in the areas of aid, trade, debt relief, and access to new technologies and affordable essential medicines."
More ab......
As part of this year's special focus on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the UN Department of Public Information has launched a redesigned web site for the UN MDGs. The new site, in all six official languages, also has a special web page for the up-coming High-level Event on MDGs, scheduled ......
The Millennium Development Goals in the Arab Region in 2007: a youth lens has been published by the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (UN-ESCWA; full text, pdf, 3.49 MB). The report provides current trends and progress in attaining the MDGs in the Arab countries, with a special e......
The World Bank is showcasing AdSpecs, cheap, self-correcting eyeglasses that allow wearers to correct their own vision. According to the press release, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that up to one billion people need corrective lenses, but few in the developing world can afford them......
The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has published a new report on The right to primary education free of charge for all (full text, pdf, 1.37 MB).
According to the report, primary schooling is not free in many developing countries. The report examines the role of ......
The Executive summary of the evaluation of the role and contribution of UNDP in the environment and energy has been issued in advance of the forthcoming session of the Executive Board of the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) (DP/2008/46). The report argues that e......
from Guardian Newspapers This is an examination of the factors that make it difficult for Nigeria to meet the Millennium Development Goals. And this article suggests some ways that might help. - KaleBy Bukky OlajideTHE achievement of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015 will require a need for countries to grow their respective economies especially in education and health sectors.MDGS, a programme designed to halve the proportion of poor people in the world to be achievable between 1990 and 2015, has influenced development benchmarks around the world, with nation's evolving various strategies to achieve the goals.It is a programme by which all countries of the world, rich and poor have agreed to participate.The MDGs, as it is, addresses those issues that are common to all nations...
The 2008 Report on the global AIDS epidemic has been launched by UNAIDS, the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (zipped full text, 9.2 MB; other download options). According to the report, many countries have made considerable progress in addressing their national epidemics; however progress remains un......
from the Thaindian This might be a pat on the back, but a new governemnt report show the strides India is making in meeting their MDG's. - KaleBy Rajeev Ranjan RoyNew Delhi, India is making impressive progress towards achieving the UN’s millennium development goals (MDGs) such as eradicating extreme poverty and ensuring universal primary education, says a government report. As per the alternative mixed recall period (MRP), India’s extremely poor population for whom making both ends meet is difficult, has come down to 21.8 percent in 2004-05 from 26.1 percent in 1999-00, says the government’s report on MDG 2007.For the MRP, a yardstick to measure declining poverty, data on five non-food items - clothing, footwear, durable goods, education and institutional medical expenses - is...
from Science Centric A medical journal publishes a study on the MDG to fight malaria. The study cites lack of funding as a primary reason. - KaleThe Millennium Development Goal (MDG) to halt and begin to reverse the incidence of malaria globally is unlikely to be met, according to Wellcome Trust Principal Research Fellow Professor Bob Snow. The statement comes in a report published in the open access journal PLoS Medicine.The eight MDGs were established by the United Nations in 2000 with a view to tackling global poverty and health inequality. Goal 6 included the target to 'halt and begin to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases.'Malaria is one of the world's biggest killers, killing over a million people every year, mainly children and pregnant women in Africa and...
Once again the G8 has come up tragically short on climate change and a host of urgent problems affecting poor people in developing countries. The good news is that they are at least discussing the right topics. The first Hokkaido G8 document, on the World Economy spills lots of ink on relations between rich and developing economies, including for example, reaffirmation of support for the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. The next three policy papers -- Environment and Climate Change, Development and Africa, and Global Food Security -- all address topics that are at the heart of rich world-developing world ties (and, not coincidently, major areas of focus for CGD research and policy work). The bad news is that the G8, representing as it does the interests of the...
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The MDG Africa Steering Group has launched its report of its 2008 Recommendations at the African Union summit meeting (full text, pdf, 2.32 MB or 1.35 MB). The steering group, composed of leaders of multilateral development organizations, aims to identify the practical steps needed to achieve the M......
from Modern Ghana By GNAAccra – Dr. Daouda Toure, UNDP Resident Representative in Ghana, on Friday noted that Ghana would be among the very first African countries that have achieved the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving poverty.He, however, pointed out that there were other goals such as high infant mortality, high maternal mortality, among others, which were still high in the country and there was the need to take steps to achieve those targets by 2015. The MDGs were signed by 189 countries in September 2000.The Millennium Development Goals are a set of objectives set by the United Nations to help all peoples in the world to live with minimum dignity.Dr. Toure was speaking at the launch of the Global Monitoring Report, 2008 on the theme: “MDGs and the Environment –...
A new publication by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) Claiming the Millennium Development Goals: a human rights approach (full text, 57.7 MB) analyses whether there are similarities or conflicting issues between the human rights and Millennium Development Goals (MDGs); it......
from All AfricaByline: Toba SuleimanAdo-Ekiti, The federal government yesterday disclosed that over 70 percent of Nigerians live below poverty level, saying this had led to the establishment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs unconditional grants so as to break the vicious circle of poverty among the people of the country.Senior Special Assistant to the President on Millennium Development Goals(MDGs), Hajia Amina Ibrahim, made the disclosure during an interactive session in Ado-Ekiti with a cross section of market women, civil servants, farmers, artisans and several other stakeholders.She said the federal government was disturbed with the impact of hunger and starvation that had continued to ravage people of the country and has thus set up the special fund to give the people the...
The UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) Commission on HIV/AIDS and Governance in Africa (CHGA) has issued a new report, Securing our future (full text, pdf, 5.16 MB). The report on the state of HIV and AIDS in Africa concludes that cultural factors, including gender inequalities, wife inher......
Prevention is for Life: HIV/AIDS dispatches from the field, a new publication from the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), uses real-life examples to explain how HIV prevention can save lives in diverse cultural and geographical settings (full text, pdf, 2.67 MB). The report includes chapters on youth and ......
2007 annual report of UNICEF has been issued (full-text, 1.7 MB).
Report is available in English, French and Spanish.......