...Health Inquiry, Global Health Inequities Introduction: The Millennium Development Goals (or MDG) are a set of 8 goals set by the world’s nations in hope of reducing poverty by 2015. These 8 goals address poverty, education, equality, disease and the environment. Each goal has a targets and indicators we are aiming to achieve by 2015. The purpose of this report is to report on the history, objectives and constitution of the MDG’s and the success and effectiveness of the MDGs. History of MDGs: In the 1990’s the United Nation (UN) member states went through a historically extraordinary UN press conference process. This conference was aimed at building consensus on development priorities for the 21st century. However, at the end of the 1990’s the governments of the conference experienced conference fatigue and feared the process launched by the conferences was losing steam. In September 2000 in New York there was a large gathering of world leaders called the Millennium Summit. This was the largest gathering of world leaders in history including 189 UN member-states. At the Millennium Summit the United Nation Millennium Declaration was adopted as a result of a series of global conferences held during the 1990’s. The UN saw the Millennium Summit as an opportunity to bring back the development of priorities for the 21st century. It was at this Millennium Summit that the Millennium Declaration set in motion a global partnership and was signed by 147 heads of states....
Words: 3629 - Pages: 15
...| | | | | |[pic] | | | Highlights on Progress to Date [pic] January 2006 This document highlights developments of the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (DESD) which are only a small reflection of the extraordinary number of activities, events, networks and support for the DESD from countries, regions, civil society, non-governmental...
Words: 3129 - Pages: 13
...UN-Millennium Development Goals 2015 Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger by Adam Pindur Contents 1. Introduction 3 2. The path towards the Millennium Declaration 4 3. Millennium Development Goals 5 4. Global Poverty: Facts and figures 6 5. Measures against global poverty 8 6. Conclusion 10 7. Bibliography 11 „Those who has seen the world's poorest people, feels rich enough to help“ Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) www.eineweltfüralle.de Introduction At the Millennium Summit of the UN in September 2000, Heads of State and Government of the world, decided to reduce the number of people living in extreme poverty by half until 2015. Never before have governments and international organizations, businesses and civil society organizations announced in this form to a common goal, and moved so the fight against poverty in the focus. The implementation of the Millennium Development Goals will be handled by many organizations and government institutions such as the BMZ (Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development). I will set my focus on the fight against poverty and mention the actions of the Millennium Declaration Goals. At first I will present the historical development from 1990 until 2000, the year of the Millennium Summit. After a presentation of the Millennium Declaration Goals, I will introduce facts and figures on global poverty. Then I will show concrete measures to tackle...
Words: 2484 - Pages: 10
...Communication for Development: Achieving the Millennium Development Goals The 10th interagency round table on communication for development UNESCO’s proposal Background Since 1988, when it first started, the interagency round table on communication for development was conceived as an informal gathering of UN agencies later expanding its outreach to NGOs, international organizations, academia, donors, and communication practitioners. The importance of communication in the development process has been acknowledged for many years by the development community. In the past decade alone, communication for development has been widely discussed in relation to specific development challenges such as HIV and AIDS but also in the broad sense often revisiting the difficulties of communicating sustainable development. The use of the terminology “communication for development” is often a subject of debate and for this reason the working definition shall be guided by Article 6, UN General Assembly Resolution 51/172, which “stresses the need to support two-way communication systems that enable dialogue and that allow communities to speak out, express their aspirations and concerns and participate in the decisions that relate to their development.” The main objective of the round table, within the framework of A/RES/51/172, is to ensure understanding among the UN agencies regarding the implementation of programmes and projects that contribute to communication for development or use...
Words: 2333 - Pages: 10
...but about half of the girls who are affected live in South Asia. Child marriage is a violation of child rights, compromising the development of girls and often resulting in premature pregnancy and social isolation. Child marriage is becoming less common overall, but the pace of change is slow. In 34 of the 55 countries with comparable data from two recent surveys, there has been no significant change in the percentage of women aged 20–24 married by 18 – and only 5 countries experienced a decrease of more than 10 per cent. Questions Introduction: Child marriage refers to any marriage of a child younger than 18 years old (18 is the recognised age of adulthood according to the Article 1 of the Convention on the Right of the Child. While child marriage affects both sexes, girls are disproportionately affected as they are the majority of the victims. Their overall development is compromised, leaving them socially isolated with little education, skills and opportunities for employment and self-realisation. This leaves child brides more vulnerable to poverty, a consequence of child marriage as well as a cause Child marriage is now widely recognised as a violation of children's rights, a direct form of discrimination against the girl child who as a result of the practice is often deprived of her basic rights to health, education, development and equality. Tradition, religion and poverty continue to fuel the practice of child marriage, despite its strong association with...
Words: 2511 - Pages: 11
...Own the Goals What the Millennium Development Goals Have Accomplished By John W. McArthur For more than a decade, the Millennium Development Goals -- a set of time-bound targets agreed on by heads of state in 2000 -- have unified, galvanized, and expanded efforts to help the world's poorest people. The overarching vision of cutting the amount of extreme poverty worldwide in half by 2015, anchored in a series of specific goals, has drawn attention and resources to otherwise forgotten issues. The MDGs have mobilized government and business leaders to donate tens of billions of dollars to life-saving tools, such as antiretroviral drugs and modern mosquito nets. The goals have promoted cooperation among public, private, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), providing a common language and bringing together disparate actors. In his 2008 address to the UN General Assembly, the philanthropist Bill Gates called the goals "the best idea for focusing the world on fighting global poverty that I have ever seen." The goals will expire on December 31, 2015, and the debate over what should come next is now in full swing. This year, a high-level UN panel, co-chaired by British Prime Minister David Cameron, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, and Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, will put forward its recommendations for a new agenda. The United States and other members of the UN General Assembly will then consider these recommendations, with growing powers, such as Brazil...
Words: 3707 - Pages: 15
...The Millennium Development Goals were created to progressively achieve 8 development targets by 2015. Although progress has been made in some areas, poverty and development continues to be a global challenge. Since 2010, the UN Secretary General initiated discussions on developing a post 2015 development agenda. The agenda follows the outcomes from the Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development in 2012 that highlights today’s development challenges. A UN System Task Team and High Level Panel have been established to complement national level consultations organized by the United Nations Development Group. The Millennium Development Goals were created to progressively achieve 8 development targets by 2015. Although progress has been made in some areas, poverty and development continues to be a global challenge. Since 2010, the UN Secretary General initiated discussions on developing a post 2015 development agenda. The agenda follows the outcomes from the Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development in 2012 that highlights today’s development challenges. A UN System Task Team and High Level Panel have been established to complement national level consultations organized by the United Nations Development Group. What really differentiate both the MDGs and the new development agenda is the its participatory nature, where Citizens are also invited to contribute to the process through the “World We Want” platform. In addition, The result of our participatory research on the post Development...
Words: 344 - Pages: 2
...Beginning in 1990, the UN began identifying ways to improve human life around the world. Then, in 2000, at the Millennium Summit the UN developed a proposal grouped into eight specific goals titled “We the Peoples: The Role of the United Nations in the Twenty-First Century” by then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. The declaration asserts that people have innate rights as human beings that should be met regardless of nationality, income, education, or ability. The following is an outline of the eight goals and their importance in achieving those rights to all people. Goal one is to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. In this goal, the most basic of human needs is addressed in the form of food and shelter. Considering the desire to elevate people in various countries to a higher standard of living is met by addressing people who live on less than $1.25 per day. Also, employment centers have been developed to help people find jobs and work in underdeveloped countries. This is very important to achieve because many who intend to not fall into sickness and poverty must have this base need met in order to progress. Goal two states the move to achieving “universal education”. In this goal, attempts to improve the level of education among the poor. Education breeds skills and confidence, and without education jobs are hard to achieve. In the poorer areas, there aren’t even schools to go to whether people wanted to or not. And education is viewed as optional to those...
Words: 1015 - Pages: 5
...Sustainable Development: From Brundtland to Rio 2012 Background Paper* prepared for consideration by the High Level Panel on Global Sustainability at its first meeting, 19 September 2010 September 2010 United Nations Headquarters, New York _________________________ *Prepared by John Drexhage and Deborah Murphy, International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) GSP1-6 Executive Summary The term, sustainable development, was popularized in Our Common Future, a report published by the World Commission on Environment and Development in 1987. Also known as the Brundtland report, Our Common Future included the “classic” definition of sustainable development: “development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Acceptance of the report by the United Nations General Assembly gave the term political salience; and in 1992 leaders set out the principles of sustainable development at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It is generally accepted that sustainable development calls for a convergence between the three pillars of economic development, social equity, and environmental protection. Sustainable development is a visionary development paradigm; and over the past 20 years governments, businesses, and civil society have accepted sustainable development as a guiding principle, made progress on sustainable development metrics, and improved...
Words: 11460 - Pages: 46
...material wealth needed to maintain existence (The Three Dictionary,2011). This essay will seek to argue that western countries are doing enough to fight global poverty. These will be referenced on the three areas of eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, improving the supply of medicine to those in need and providing education to young children. To begin with, western countries are doing enough to fight global poverty because they are eradicating hunger. Western countries provide food and daily needs for the poor through funding or organization like Millennium Development Goals by the United Nations. Around the world more than 2.5 billion of poor live in grinding poverty on less than $2 a day (the UN Works for People and the Planet, 2011). According to the “8 Goals For Africa Campaign”, which is established by the Millennium Development Goals Advocacy Campaign by the UN of South Africa, one of the commitments signed by the UN Millennium Declaration on September 2008 stated that they are willing to commit in abolishing extreme poverty and hunger in South Africa(End Poverty 2015 millennium...
Words: 1061 - Pages: 5
...Assignment 1 comprises five written response questions. Your response to each of the five questions should be approximately 150 to 250 words. Prepare your responses for all five questions in one document (Microsoft Word or compatible). Each question is worth 15 marks. 1. Are per capita increases in GDP (gross domestic product) a good indicator of economic development? Explain your answer. GDP per capita is often a very lacking indicator of economic development. There are many other factors that affect economic development. The three core values of development are: sustenance, self-esteem, and freedom. While growing GDP and GNI can help attain these, particularly sustenance, it is not enough. Often incomes are not distributed evenly, in both developing and developed nations. Sustenance is basic goods and services, including food, shelter, clothing; the basic needs for survival. GDP can help achieve this but it has less effect on the other two core values. Self-esteem can be described as a feeling of worthiness that a society enjoys when it’s social, political, and economic system and institutions promote human values including respect, dignity, integrity, and self-determination. A large GDP/capita increase was seen in many Middle Eastern countries, yet most of the population was left out of the growth, women are treated as second citizens, and poverty is still wide spread. Freedom is a situation in which a society has a variety of alternatives...
Words: 1244 - Pages: 5
...The Millennium Development Goals: Where Bangladesh Stands? Six countries including Bangladesh received the UN Millennium Development Goal (MDG) Awards for their significant achievements towards attaining the goal. Three of these countries are from Asia and three from Africa. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina receiving the UN MDG Award in New York’s Astoria Hotel on Sunday 19 September 2010 Bangladesh received the UN award for its remarkable achievements in attaining the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) particularly in reducing child mortality. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina received the award at a colorful function at New York's Astoria Hotel on Sunday (19 September 2010). Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina with other Ministers in a photo session following receipt of UN MDG Award 2010 (19 September 2010, New York) 1 | MDGs and Bangladesh In September 2000, world leaders endorsed the Millennium Declaration, a commitment to work together to build a safer, more prosperous and equitable world. The Declaration was translated into a roadmap setting out eight time-bound and measurable goals to be reached by 2015, known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs): They include goals and targets on poverty, hunger, maternal and child mortality, disease, inadequate shelter, gender inequality, environmental degradation and the Global Partnership for Development. The proud Minister for Health and Family Welfare of Bangladesh Professor Dr AFM Ruhal Haque, MP with the UN MDG Award Crest...
Words: 1645 - Pages: 7
...The United Nations Millennium Development Goals In September 2000, all 191 UN member states have agreed and signed a declaration to try to achieve eight goals by the year 2015. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, promote gender equality and empower women, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, ensure environmental sustainability, develop a global partnership for development are the eight goals developed by the members of UN (World Health Organization [WHO], 2012). The purpose of this paper is to give an overview about Millennium Development Goal 6 which is, Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Other Diseases. Implication for Millennium Development Goals The eight Millennium Development Goals are a global agenda to improve the wellbeing of people around the world. The progress report on MDG issued in 2009, shows that policies and actions backed by adequate funding and strong political commitment can yield results. Death rate due to AIDS, have significantly reduced and many countries are implementing strategies to combat malaria and measles. There are many challenges still remaining due to the current economic status of several countries (Mattson, 2010) Millennium Development Goal 6: combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Other Diseases HIV/AIDS, Malaria and TB are major challenges of public health in the poorest countries of the world. Every 30 seconds, a child in Africa is dying due to Malaria. Many children who suffer from Malaria...
Words: 1410 - Pages: 6
...without the copyright owner‟s permission if the author and publisher are acknowledged in the copy and the copy is used for educational, not-for-profit purposes. URBAN SLUMS IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA: UNDERSTANDING THEIR ORIGINS/EVOLUTIONS AND METHODS FOR IMPROVEMENT Leanna Medal and Mark Boyer Department of Landscape Architecture University of Arkansas ABSTRACT: Currently, it is estimated that one billion people live in urban slums and the expectation is that the number will double in the next twenty-five years (Tibaijuka 2005). Of all the geographical areas in the world, sub-Saharan Africa has the worst record of meeting the Millennium Development Goals and has the highest percentage of slums dwellers as a percentage of the urban population (Hugo Ahlenius (UNEP/GRID-Arendal) 2005; UN-HABITAT 2003b). Many of the UN Millennium Development Goals could achieve maximum effects if urban slums were targeted for improvements due to the large populations they constitute. While some attention is being given to improving the conditions of urban slums, the progress is slow and there appears to be a scarcity of information about what is being done and if it is working. Slums have evolved from their origins in Britain‟s industrialization in the 18th century through the social reformers of the 19th century to today‟s slums, which are deemed unsafe because of a lack of basic infrastructure and services. Additionally, three cases studies of improvement projects in subSaharan Africa give some...
Words: 6140 - Pages: 25
...stated that “safe and clean drinking water … [was] a human right that is essential for the full enjoyment of life and all human rights” (p.2). This right, however, is not accessible to everyone in the world. So, this paper will look at why unsanitary drinking water is a global problem, examining the problem through the lens of the conflict theory, and some possible solutions. Problems First, this paper will look at factors as to why unsanitary water is a global problem. According to the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, more than 780 million people still do not have access to safe drinking water in the world (Ramirez-Djumena, 2012, p. 33). While this number technically meets the United Nations Millennium Development Goal Target 7c to “reduce by half, between 1990 and 2015, ‘the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking-water and basic sanitation,’” there is still more than 40 percent of all inhabitants of sub-Saharan Africa who lack access to safe-drinking water and only 19 out of the 50 countries in that area are on track to meet Target 7c (Bain, 2012, p.228; Ramirez-Djumena, 2012, p.32). Without access to clean drinking water, the inhabitants in these areas are more susceptible to water-born diseases. The World Health Organization reported that due a lack of access to clean water, “1.6 million people die every year from diarrhoeal diseases … and 90% are children under 5, in developing countries” ("Health through safe...
Words: 1173 - Pages: 5
