Post2015.org is collating responses to the UN’s final MDG report ahead of the launch of the Sustainable Development Goals later this year. Please check back for updates
Ben Phillips, ActionAid International Campaigns and Policy Director
“World leaders cannot fulfil their pledge to end poverty unless they tackle the crisis of the widening gap in wealth and power between the richest and the rest.
“Ending poverty by 2030 cannot and should not be only an arithmetic exercise on the basis of very low dollar poverty lines which will not guarantee a life of dignity for all. If people go to bed hungry, don’t have access to water and sanitation, to education or health coverage, the income threshold is not the end of poverty. Even to get over the very low poverty lines they have, however, growth will not be enough if it is not more evenly shared.
“The world can overcome poverty and ensure dignity for all if political leaders find the courage to challenge inequality by boosting jobs, increasing minimum wages, providing universal public services, stopping tax dodging and tackling climate change.
Governments need to stand up to corporate interests who are now so powerful that they are not only the sole beneficiaries of global rigged rules but the co-authors of them. It’s clear that governments will only take on the power of money if they are challenged by the power of the people. The good news is that the movement to tackle inequality and confront plutocracy is growing.”
Global Poverty Drops Sharply, With China Making Big Strides, U.N. Report Says (New York Times)
The MDGs come to an end (Development Today)
UN: MDGs reached, but more needs to be done (Sun.Star)
Poverty, hunger, still threaten MDG (Rappler)
Progress in Millennium Development Goals has led to dramatic health gains (The Pharmaceutical Journal)
China, India played central role in global poverty reduction: UN report (Economic Times)
UN notes progress on MDGs, but says challenges remain for India (Zee News)
UN Praises Progress On Millennium Development Goals (International Business Times)
UN: 15-year push ends extreme poverty for a billion people (The Guardian)
Sustainable development goals will be hard sell for United Nations
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) report launched(Cihan News Agency)
800 million still hungry and poor despite progress of millennium goals – UN (Reuters UK)
It is disempowering to the poor for governments, the media and others to understate, or imply understated, government commitments.
The Reuters story says, “The number of people living in extreme poverty on less than $1.25 a day has more than halved, to 836 million from 1.9 billion in 1990, the U.N. said in a report analysing eight development goals set out in the Millennium Declaration in 2000”
The Declaration does not contain a list of eight goals, the term “Millennium Development Goals” or the generally easier 1990 baseline which four UN agencies sent out to country representatives in November 2001 with no authority from the General Assembly. I have told Reuters of the difference – as I have told the Guardian, the BBC, the New York Times, Scientific American, the Lancet, the Economist and so on.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/aboutthebbc/entries/6d70efd6-c5ba-4e25-8eb2-69fb35fb5348?postId=122489091&initial_page_size=20#comment_122489091
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/19/the-guardian-view-on-global-development-goals-heed-the-good-news-but-more-needs-to-be-done#comment-56111650
millenniumdeclaration.org
Posted by Matt Berkley | July 22, 2015, 10:08 am