Students support the Millennium Development Goals

UN Chronicle, March-May, 2006 by Faye Neville

THE WORLD'S YOUTH are working to support the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)--thanks to the United Nations, the 2005 Live8 concert, MTV and some international celebrities, such as Irish musician Bono, actor Richard Gere of the United States, singer Angelique Kido from Benin, tennis player and actor Vijay Amritrai from India, and the Los Tigres del Norte band from Mexico, as well as other websites.

In 2000, Governments committed themselves to a global partnership, pledging to achieve the eight MDGs by 2015: eradicate extreme poverty and hunger; achieve universal primary education for all boys and girls; promote gender equality and empower women; reduce by two thirds the mortality rate of children under five; reduce by three quarters the ratio of maternal mortality; combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases; ensure environmental sustain-ability; and develop a global partnership for development. While these goals are real challenges, the international community has the money, technology and resources to achieve them--we just need the will.

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The World Bank estimates that about 1.1 billion people, one fifth of the global population, live in extreme poverty. Some 44 per cent in sub-Saharan Africa are subsisting on less than a dollar a day, 29.9 per cent in southern Asia and 16.6 per cent in eastern Asia. Each year, 18 million people die from poverty-related causes, which is about 270 million since 1990, roughly the population of the United States.

Health care is another crisis. In 2005, sub-Saharan Africa had 25.8 million people suffering from HIV--two thirds of the total worldwide--2.4 million died of AIDS and 3.2 million were newly infected. While antiviral drugs are saving thousands of lives in the Western world, Africans have less access to these life-saving medicines.

On education, over 100 million children are not in school, 46 per cent of girls in poor countries have no access to primary education and more than one in four adults--two thirds are women--cannot read nor write. Universal primary education would cost $10 billion a year, which is half of what Americans spend on ice cream. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) reports that there are 137 million youths, aged 15 to 24, worldwide who are illiterate, 61 per cent of them women.

Current trade rules are leaving poor countries out of the global trading system, and official debt is blocking their economic and social development. However, recent debt relief is boosting the education and health-care sectors in some developing countries, such as the United Republic of Tanzania, whose Government was able to abolish primary school fees, leading to a 66-per-cent increase in attendance, and Mozambique was able to offer children free immunization, while Uganda provided water to 2.2 million people. Rich countries are being pressured to cancel more debt, especially for African nations; in 2005, they agreed to do so for 38 least developed countries.

My support and passion for the MDGs began in September 2004, when I attended a United Nations conference in New York City as part of a DePaul University class trip. It was humbling and exhilarating to be with 2,000 people from some 90 countries and to learn about the MDGs from leaders in civil society organizations, UN officials and diplomats. Thousands also joined us by watching the UN web-cast in English, French and Spanish, and asking questions via e-mail. One dynamic conference speaker was Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs, the Secretary-General's Special Advisor on the UN Millennium Project, who was passionate about getting the entire world to help achieve the MDGs. He explained that one sixth of the world's population was so poor that they could not even get on the first rung of the development ladder. Extreme poverty meant households could not meet basic needs for survival, he said. They were trapped by disease, physical isolation, climate stress, environmental degradation and extreme poverty.

When I returned from this exciting UN trip, I discovered that fellow students were just as enthusiastic about promoting the MDGs. They immediately swung into action and created many projects on their own. One classmate made a PowerPoint presentation and spoke at several churches and schools on the MDGs; another created a powerful video to educate people about the Goals, posting it on his website (www.christianpicciolini.com/exhibitions_current.htm); a third one with ties to the parliament in Guatemala is educating political leaders on how to implement these Goals, translated the MDGs video into Spanish, and distributed dozens of compact discs to many non-governmental organizations across Guatemala. A classmate spoke to suburban high school students, who were inspired to create a club that is raising $10,000 to dig water wells in Zambia. One is teaching the MDGs at a Chicago high school and another created a non-profit organization that would fund her aunt's impoverished day-care centre in the Dominican Republic. Several students established a university club to support the MDGs; some conducted research in their other classes. All these were incredibly inspiring to me.