The goal: to change the world
Exerts from editorial by Glenda Holste in St. Paul Pioneer Press on 6/3/2005
“The message from the United Nations’ coordinator resonates with the fire and practical optimism of a classic Midwest prairie populist: Informed, engaged citizens can change the world.”
Holste’s editorial centers around the United Nations’ “Millennium Development Goals” and the current town hall tour by Eveline Herfens, executive coordinator of the UN’s Millennium Goal campaign. To make such a campaign work and these goals to reached, we have to “get them down out of the rethorical clouds and into your hands.”
What are the goals that have been approved by the 191 countries making up the UN?
They are as follows:
1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.
2. Achieve universal primary education.
3. Promote gender equality and empower women.
4. Reduce child mortality.
5. Improve maternal health.
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases.
7. Ensure environmental sustainability.
8. Develop a global partnership for development.
The target date for reaching these goals is 2015. All 191 UN member nations have pledge to do their part.
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UN: Annan urges money to battle AIDS
6/3/2005 Minneapolis Star-Tribune
Secretary-General Kofi Annan, at an opening address to representatives of 127 countries at a daylong conference, warned that the AIDS epidemic is accelerating on every continent and called for more money and leadership to halt its spread by the UN target date of 2015. Annan said the scale of the global response to the scourge of AIDS has been significant, but insufficient because “it has not matched the epidemic in scale. Last year saw more new infections and more AIDS-related deaths than ever before.” Only 12 percent of the people in need of antiretroviral therapies in low- and middle-income countries are receiving them, he said.
Need United States to follow through on its commitment to UN Millennium Development Goals. Member nations have committed to provide 0.7 percent of gross domestic income for the international development work need to meet these goals.
“The United States is not following through on the commitment that it made to support Millennium Development Goals. We give the lowest amount of our national income as official development assistance….Americans don not believe this, but it’s true. Americans believe, when they’re asked in opinion surveys how much aid we give, they believe first that the official aid is roughly 25 to 30 times what it actually is, and they believe that the private giving is many times more that the official giving. Both of these are simply wrong. The official giving this year will be about $16 billion of official assistance in a $12 trillion economy. This is about 0.15 percent of our gross national product.
Jeffery Sachs
UN adviser and economist
Author of the book: “The End of Poverty”
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