UN - Millennium Development Goals
 

A call to “kick goals” in September

 

Here in Australia, the month of September is all about football and finals. Depending on where you live, it could be Australian Rules, Rugby League or Rugby Union.

 

However, in New York on 25 September, the UN will be kicking more important goals with The Call to Action on the Millennium Development Goals, a major event calling on governments across the globe to deliver on their promises, particularly those relating to:

  • Health
  • Child survival
  • Education

This event is an opportunity to stay on track and kick straight and long. It may not produce significant new outcomes, but it is a step in the right direction. Now is not the time to handball our responsibilities. 

Advocacy should focus on issues relating to child survival and education, and on the impact of global food price rises on children. Across each of these areas, we should ensure a level playing field.  

The Millennium Development Goals, launched with such excitement in 2000, are not getting the results on the board.  

 

Child Survival

MDG 4 calls for a reduction by two thirds, between 1990 and 2015, in the under-five mortality rate. While there has been progress in some countries, the overall pace of improvement is very slow. Just under 10 million children still die each year before the age of five, including four million who die within a month of being born. At current rates, MDG 4 will not be achieved globally until 2045!

  • Save the Children’s Primary Heath Care project in northern Laos has improved access to, and quality of health care services available to women and children. The infant mortality rate in Sayaboury Province is now 2.4% compared with a national average of 8%.
  • Through the Health Sector Support Project in Kampong Cham Province, Cambodia, coverage of the seven vaccines for infants has increased by 43%.

 

Education

MDG 2 commits governments to ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary education. Despite real progress, there are still an estimated 72 million children who are not in school.

  • In Laos, we have been working with unions and district education departments to provide access to primary education for children in Sayaboury Province.
  • Although the right to basic education is guaranteed to every child in Cambodia, the quality in remote areas is poor.
  • In Bangladesh, the Khamatayan Empowerment Education Project, promotes quality inclusive education that emphasizes the participation of all children in the classroom and school.
  • Partnerships in Papua New Guinea support the training of teachers across seven districts, providing support to over 2,000 students and young people.

 

Food Prices

Global food prices have risen by 83 per cent over the last three years.

According to the World Bank, this has pushed an additional 105 million people below the global poverty line. 862 million people – 143 million of whom are under 5 years of age were under-nourished even before the current price rises and 51 countries are unable to meet MDG1 on hunger.

  • By supporting household nutrition through community gardens and food aid, the “Orphans and Children made Vulnerable by HIV” project in Cambodia improves the wellbeing of an extremely vulnerable group.
  • Youth Outreach Program (YOP) in Solomon Islands particularly contributes to this goal by enhancing opportunities for livelihood and life skills training.

 

Afghan Children

Above: Afghan children ‘get on track’ to send a message to the UN

 

Ms. Nadera Hayat (Copyright: Save the Children Australia)

Above: The honourable Deputy Minister for Public Health, Ms. Nadera Hayat cuts a ribbon to inaugurate a series of ‘Get on Track’ events across Afghanistan.

Leaders at the forthcoming UN meeting should commit to tackling both the immediate food crisis and the longer term problem of food insecurity and under-nutrition.

This should include:

 

  • Ensuring that the World Food Program and other aid agencies have adequate funds on an ongoing basis to support governments to meet new and existing needs for food assistance in a context of rising prices.
  • Support for the development or expansion of social protection and basic nutrition programs, focused on the needs of the poorest and most food insecure families.
  • A moratorium on new official targets and quotas for the production of biofuels and a review of those that already exist.
  • A commitment to increase significantly investment in agriculture in the world’s poorest countries.