Reality Check: Missing the Millennium Development Goals?

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Wednesday, February 10, 2010 00:12 GMT

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What have world leaders promised?

A new video from the United Nations Millennium Campaign and United Nations Development Programme highlighting what world leaders have promised.

In September 2010, the United Nations will host the largest gathering of heads of state since the Millennium Summit in the year 2000. At their last Summit, 189 world leaders pledged to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, in order to eradicate extreme poverty and its root causes by the year 2015. With just five years left until the deadline, the upcoming summit represents the international community’s last chance to develop breakthrough plans to achieve the Goals. We must tell heads of state in no uncertain terms that we expect them to deliver on their promises.

ZIMBABWE: How Do You Solve a Problem Like Arrears?
By Zenzele Ndebele
BULAWAYO - Faced with nearly six billion dollars of external debt, Zimbabwe's national unity government is considering applying for Highly Indebted Poor Country status.
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Q&A: Creating Momentum for Women's Participation
Paula Fray interviews ANNE-MARIE GOETZ, UNIFEM chief advisor for Governance, Peace and Security
NEW DELHI - Women's movements have played a critical role in creating political space for female participation in politics around the world. In fact, there are more women in government today than ever before.
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ENERGY-MEXICO: Big and Small Firms Harness Sun's Rays
By Emilio Godoy
CHAPANTONGO, Mexico - It was Isabel Cortés, the family matriarch, who started the project. In 1990, she started looking for a way to market xoconostle, the sour variety of the nopal cactus fruit that is abundant in this arid part of central Mexico, in the Mezquital valley.
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DEVELOPMENT: Crisis Could Open Doors for Change, Says UNCTAD
By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS - As the financial crisis continued to threaten world economies last year, the White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel famously declared: "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste."
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PAKISTAN: Community Midwives Gain Recognition But Concerns Remain
By Zofeen Ebrahim
KARACHI - As Kanwal Gul, 25, lay on the delivery table a year ago, preparing to give birth to her first child, she made sure the traditional birth attendant (TBA) assisting her knew exactly what to do. Put on the gloves, she instructed her.
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PERU: Women Combine Invention, Tradition to Improve Rural Diets
By Milagros Salazar
PAUCARÁ, Peru - Although Huancavelica is the poorest region of Peru, it has more than just poverty, malnutrition and unmet needs. There are also women using their creativity, efforts and traditional indigenous knowledge to improve the diets of their families and communities.
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ETHIOPIA: Dam Critics Won't Go Away
By IPS Correspondents
ADDIS ABABA - Ethiopia is building a 240-metre high dam on the Omo River that is intended to end the country's electricity shortage and supply power to neighbouring countries. Not everyone's happy.
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DEVELOPMENT: South-South Cooperation Key to MDGs
By IPS Correspondents
UNITED NATIONS - Member states meeting here Thursday called for the immediate implementation of development commitments made during the Nairobi high-level U.N. conference on cooperation between developing countries.
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CUBA: Women Knitting for Change
By Dalia Acosta
HAVANA - A neighbour started calling Andrea del Sol "Perseverance," and the name stuck. Since 1998, she and a small group of women from Alamar, on the outskirts of the Cuban capital, have been throwing their combined energies behind a common purpose: "changing things."
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ENVIRONMENT: Keeping Wetlands from Becoming Wastelands
By Stephen Leahy
VICTORIA, Seychelles - Swamps, marshes and other wetlands are beginning to be recognised as a country's 'green jewels', even in a tropical paradise like Mahé Island here in the Seychelles, with its stunning beaches and dramatic granite outcrops.
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U.S.: Bill Pledges a Billion Dollars to Fight Gender Violence
By Charles Fromm
WASHINGTON - The U.S. House and Senate introduced new legislation Thursday that addresses the plight of women around the world who are victims of violence.
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RIGHTS: EU Faults U.N. for Slowdown in Gender Empowerment
By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS - Against the backdrop of continued widespread gender discrimination worldwide, the European Union (EU) has urged Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to "urgently" speed up the creation of the proposed new U.N. agency for women.
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KENYA: Insuring Pastoralists Against Increasing Risks
By Susan Anyangu-Amu
NAIROBI - The droughts in the Turkana region were less severe when she was growing up, says Laura Letapalel, and pastoralists could still find some grass and water for their animals. Now, she laments, the droughts are longer and there is nothing to eat.
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COSTA RICA: Luxury Homeowners Evade Solidarity Tax
By Daniel Zueras
SAN JOSÉ - The first attempt to collect a new tax on luxury homes in Costa Rica has ended in failure, in spite of the fact that it is a solidarity tax entirely devoted to building social housing for slum-dwellers.
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HAITI: Displaced Women Face Double Jeopardy
By Marguerite A. Suozzi
UNITED NATIONS - Women's rights and development activists working in Haiti say that greater attention must be paid to the immediate needs of women and girls, as well as their role in the long-term reconstruction of the devastated country.
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KENYA: Victory for Anti-Abortion Lobby
By Susan Anyangu-Amu
NAIROBI - The threat by influential Christian leaders to mobilise a vote against Kenya's draft constitution if it does not explicitly prevent any expansion of abortion rights appears to have succeeded.
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U.S.: Obama Calls for More Development, Counterinsurgency Aid
By Jim Lobe and Eli Clifton
WASHINGTON - U.S. President Barack Obama Monday called on Congress to approve major increases over the coming months in global health, development, and counterinsurgency assistance as part of a record 3.8-trillion-dollar 2011 federal budget.
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WORLD SOCIAL FORUM: Reconciling Social and Environmental Needs
By Mario Osava* IPS/TerraViva
SALVADOR, Brazil - One of the greatest challenges facing the world today is to attend to the urgent social needs of the planet’s population, and particularly the one billion people living "on the brink of survival", while dealing with the equally urgent demands of the environment.
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HEALTH: 10-Billion-Dollar Vaccine Pledge by Gates Hailed
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON - The pledge by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to provide 10 billion dollars over 10 years on vaccines aimed at reducing child mortality in the world's poorest countries was hailed by global health organisations around the world Friday.
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WORLD SOCIAL FORUM: Sierra Leone Sees Opportunity to Rise Up
By Mohamed Fofanah
FREETOWN - The World Social Forum held in Nairobi in 2007 inspired Sierra Leonean activists to organise themselves to demand things like housing, health care and greater accountability from their government. That inspiration was not sustained.
MORE >>

HEALTH: Rotavirus Vaccine Making Headway in Africa
By Marguerite A. Suozzi
NEW YORK - New vaccination programmes against rotavirus are starting to have a positive impact, and could eventually prevent hundreds of thousands of child deaths a year, according to a new report.
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In 2000, 189 countries adopted the Millennium Declaration. Last year, world leaders convened in New York to access progress toward their commitments to reach the Millennium Development Goals on aid, trade and debt, governance, education, health and democracy by 2015. Much has been done. It is estimated, for example, that the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria - set up at the 2001 Genoa Summit - has saved more than 2 million lives. However, there is still a long way to go to meeting the goals. IPS is covering the issues at stake and more.

Metas del Milenio 2015
Versión en Español

Deadline 2015
Version française

IPS and UNDP Launch Second Journalism Prize on MDGs

The Neglected Goal - A Toilet Revolution

Special Report from Colombia - The Unusual Wealth of the Chocó


	A WAR ON POVERTY OR A WAR ON THE POOR? by Riccardo Petrella

	EQUITABLE DEVELOPMENT: THE RISKS OF INACTION by Yash Tandon

	CURRENT PACE TOO SLOW ON UN MILLENNIUM POVERTY GOALS by Thabo Mbeki

	UNQUENCHABLE THIRST: THE WORLD WATER BUSINESS by Riccardo Petrella

	TAILOR THE DEVELOPMENT APPROACH TO LOCAL CONDITIONS by Benjamin Mkapa

	MDGS AT MIDPOINT : THE MONEY IS THERE, THE POLITICAL WILL ISN'T by Kumi Naidoo

	MILLENNIUM GOALS NOT ON COURSE : TIME FOR URGENT ACTION by Mary Robinson

	GLOBALISATION: NOT A ZERO SUM GAME BUT AN OPPORTUNITY FOR ALL by Emma Bonino

UN Millennium Development Goals
Global Call to Action against Poverty
Millennium Campaign
UNIFEM - MDGs
MDG Monitor - Tracking the Millennium Development Goals
Millennium Project
United Nations Non-Governmental Liaison Service - Millennium Development Goals
MDGs Choike - a portal on Southern civil societies

IPS is not responsible for the content of external sites

IPS is providing the International Network of Street Papers with news about the MDGs. INSP aims to alleviate poverty and build a just civil society in the world.