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 the problem. We will see that there are many barriers that must be overcome. At the end I will take a conclusion.

The path towards the Millennium Declaration

On the 8th of September 2000, the Millennium Declaration was proclaimed by the 55th UN General Assembly. The 189 member states were represented mostly by their heads of state or government. (BMZ, 2011) The Millennium Summit is the highlight of the development since the end of the Cold War. Early 1990s several UN conferences were held, which different aspects of global social development and poverty eradication discussed.
The "World Summit for Social Development" in 1995 was one of the most important conferences for the development of later MDGs. (AKSB, 2012) It was decided that the highly indebted developing countries should be helped by grant debt relief.
(Lexikon der Nachhaltigkeit, 2011)
In 1996 adopted the OECD's Development Assistance Committee the resolution "Shaping the 21st Century. These so-called International Development Goals should be pursued and achieved by each country. The aim of the International Development Goals from 1996 was to halve until 2015 the number of people living in extreme poverty, ensuring education for all people in the world, child mortality should be reduced by two thirds and maternal mortality reduced by three quarters, all people should have a system of primary health care available. Proven record of success in gender equality should be achieved even by 2005. The concerns of the previous conferences were the implementation of civil, political, social and cultural human rights. Specific approaches were there to improve the international trading and financial system, the establishment of a market economy system, the retransmission of democratic structures and thus a stronger involvement of civil society in political decision-making, other positive changes in the legal position of women in societies, as well as a sustainable protection of the environment and resources.
(Lexikon der Nachhaltigkeit, 2011)
Despite many conferences, the balance in the year 2000 was still devastating. There were over one billion people living in extreme poverty. One fifth of the world population had to survive with less than one U.S. dollar per day, more than 700 million people suffering from malnutrition and over one billion people have no clean drinking water. It is easily recognizable that the ambitious goals of the nineties have been missed.
(Armut, 2011)
Millennium Development Goals

In September 2000 took the known UN Millennium Summit place in New York.
The present representatives of the the 189 member countries adopted in the 55thGeneral Assembly the Millennium Declaration. There were set targets for fight against poverty. It was required from all member countries to combat poverty, to promote and to achieve respect for human dignity, gender equality, democratic structures, ecological sustainability and world peace (UN, 2000). To implement these goals, a group of representatives of the Secretariat of the UN, the World Bank, OECD and the IMF, created eight goals, the so-called "Millennium Development Goals" (MDG). The MDG, which provide for the elimination of global social problems until the year 2015, include:

Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.
The first goal aims to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. The number of people who have less than one U.S. dollar a day to live and the proportion of people suffering from hunger until the year 2015 shall be reduced by half. The basic value for this criterion is the year 1990.
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
(The Green Market, 2012)
Goal 7: Ensure Environmental Sustainability
Goal 8: Develop a Global Partnership for Development
(MDG, 2011)
In September 2005 a first balance should be made at the "World Summit". The Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) summarizes the results of this summit composed as follows:
The 0.7% target to increase the funding for development cooperation was also established as a further debt relief for poor developing countries. With the founding of a new Peace Building Commission, countries making a transition from war or violent conflict to peace must ensure that stability and security can be facilitated. The reform of the UN Security Council is described as necessary and urgent. However, there is not progress in all areas: it lacks a commitment to disarmament, especially nuclear disarmament and to global climate goals. The formation of a Human Rights Council with real ways to prevent human rights violations or to condemn, failed. (Interportal, 2010)

Global Poverty: Facts and figures

The central concern is to tackle global poverty. This should be achieved in various ways, as poverty is very complex. A definition of is very difficult because poverty can have many causes such as by drought or low wages. Also, a high debt of a country, corruption, wars, natural disasters and inadequate school system can contribute. In order to make poverty measurable and comparable, the World Bank introduced the called "one - dollar - definition". Therefore every person is living in extreme poverty, which has less than a dollar a day to live. Another way to understand poverty is the human development index
(Human Development Index, HDI). This is calculated by the development program of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). (HDR, 2011)

The scale of global poverty is clear when you take a look at the facts:

69 million children worldwide have no primary education

(UNStats, 2012)

More than a billion people live on less than one U.S. dollar per day. 22.

(UNStats, 2012)

The severe food shortages is highlighted by the fact that as a result of decreasing soil fertility, food production in the last 25years increased by 23 percent, although the world population grew dramatically in the same period. Especially severe is the situation in Africa. More than 40 percent of the people living there are not in a position to provide food.
The MDGs are intended to help to eliminate these problems.
(UN Milleniumsprojekt, 2011)

(Gruppo Missionario, 2011)
Measures against global poverty

To achieve the MDG, it is important that politicians do maximum effort. An increase in financial resources is also needed for that. One criterion is to achieve the 0.7% factor. The rich industrialized nations must spend 0.7% of their gross national product for public development assistance. In 2002 was the average development assistance by donor countries 0.23%. In the same year the EU announced to increase their development assistance rate to 0.39% until 2006. According to the Sachs report of 2005 until now, only Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden have reached the 0.7% target.
(UN-Kampagne, 2011)
It will not only put demands on the industrial nations. Therefore, a focus of the MDGs is, that the governments of Developing countries create internal political, economic and social establish relationships. Governmental action from developing countries will primarily serve the fight against poverty. In this sense, social structures are necessary to make it possible that the productive forces of the respective societies will fully develop. So the effort is successful, other external reforms are required. These are also mentioned in the 8MDGs. It says that an open global trading and financial system should be expanded. Through customs and quota-free market access for all exports, the economy should be improved for developing countries. The highest priority in agricultural trade is the improved market access. Here is the reduction of specific duties on the exports of low-income countries, such as cotton is particularly important. But equally important is the elimination of the export subsidies. One of the biggest problems in non agricultural goods is that exports to the developed, rich industrialized nations are subject to customs duties, which are usually four times higher than exports between developed Countries.
(UN-Milleniumsprojekt, 2011)
The Sachs report suggests that developed countries reduce all customs duties on all non-agricultural products to 0 until the year 2015. Not every developing country has an economy that is able to use these trade opportunities. Therefore it is important that a grant of flexibility and assistance in adapting to the new trade opportunities will be ensured. Investments in these countries are also extremely important. This should be invested in agricultural productivity, infrastructure, telecommunications, ports, energy sector and in export competitiveness. According to the Sachs report is to promote the export competitiveness denied if someone promotes discrimination or coercive practices in the labor market or damages the natural environment, for example through unsustainable fishing.
Equally significant is that specified in the MDG debt relief for heavily indebted developing countries. The debt is one of the main reasons that the financial means to fight against poverty. Heavily indebted countries are on the international capital market as credit worthy. Therefore this country has not enough money available to fight poverty. Debt relief for these countries would provide very important resources. Such resources have enabled in Uganda a free primary school education. (AGEZ, 2005) Civilian organizations can increase the public pressure on the politicians to the keep their promises. At the international level, organizations can increase the pressure on governments further to meet their political commitments. Good examples are the periodic protests by organizations like ATTAC at the G – 8 Summit.
Organized civil society can also help locally. Best Example is the work of the civil organization "Doctors without borders". Besides the commercial sector the private sector in fighting poverty is required. Because state institutions are often overstrained, a close collaboration between public and private sectors is needed. (Ärzte-ohne-Grenzen, 2012) The state has to provide for example an intact infrastructure. Domestic private sector has, relation to the achievement of the MDG has an important role because it can help by investing to increase productivity of the economy and creating jobs, to raise the living standard of the population and to fight poverty effectively.

(Ärzte-ohne-Grenzen)

Conclusion

The ambitious goal of the UN Millennium Project is particularly by the just mentioned claims and liabilities, a tremendous opportunity to alleviate global poverty and the suffering of billions. Poverty can only be effectively tackled if the measures in all other areas, such as Peace, human rights, democracy and environmental sustainability are met.
But the success is only a drop in the ocean because achieving the MDG is not the end. It is only the beginning. The aim of the proportion of people living in poverty and people suffering from hunger to halve until the year 2015, refers to figures of 1990. At that time there was a world population of about 5.2 billion people, but about 7 billion people live today (Weltbevölkerung.de). Thus the challenge will be perhaps feasible. The current results seem to confirm this, because the proportion of people who have less than 1.25 U.S. dollar per day, decreased significantly. (UN-Stats, 2012) If we look more closely at the regions with extreme poverty, then we will see that can be difficult to find a consistent answer to the problem of the reduction in poverty. The reason for the large decline in extreme poverty in East Asia is the enormous economic boom in China. (UN-Stats, 2011) However you look at the sub Saharan Africa, it is clear that the fight is far from a victory. The proportion of population living on less than 1.25 U.S. dollar per day has risen to 51.4%. (UN-Kampagne.de)
The economically weak countries must make every possible effort in order to achieve the goals with the maximum own contribution. If we do not invest now, the way to the next Millennium Summit in the year 3000 will be be a long one.

Bibliography

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