International
Millennium Development Goals
Bob Geldof: ‘We need to shout’
It’s sometimes hard, especially in tough economic times, to think about the real difference we are making in the fight against extreme poverty. So we took another look at Bob Geldof’s closing remarks at the end of September’s UN summit in New York.
Geldof called for the assembled delegates to confound the cynics and clichés, and to bring all countries to the table to continue to fight the ‘tangible condition’ of poverty. From high-level talks on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to each of us ‘giving a buck’ to projects abroad, Geldof stresses that we’re winning; we’ve got the ‘big heavy wheel of equity and justice turning’.
Progress on poverty is happening. You can see the astounding statistics and stories of success everywhere you look. So make no mistake we are making a difference. In the words of Goethe, quoted by Geldof, ‘Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, magic and power in it’.
World Toilet Day
Toilets. It’s a subject that not many like to talk about but that is all about to change because today is a World Toilet Day!
Did you know that 2.6 billion people, about a third of the world’s population, do not have somewhere safe, private or hygienic to go to the toilet? And that the world is largely off track to meet Millennium Development Goal Seven – to halve, by 2015, the proportion of the population without sustainable access to basic sanitation?
Over 2 billion sounds like a big number – and we know the Millennium Development Goals are important – but for many of us, it is something that is simply out of our realm of comprehension. However, for many people living in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, this is a daily reality.
Globally, diarrhoea is a leading cause of illness and death with 88% of diarrhoeal deaths due to a lack of access to sanitation facilities compounded by unsafe drinking water and the unavailability of water for hygiene. Every 20 seconds, a child dies as a result of poor sanitation – that’s 1.5 million preventable deaths each year. Not only does diarrhoea kill more children each year than malaria or HIV/AIDS combined, but it causes millions of adults and children to miss work or school, which has enormous social, economic and political consequences. It is estimated that every $1 spent on water and sanitation generates returns of $8 in saved time, increased productivity and reduced health care costs.
For World Toilet Day, don’t be shy; help spread the word about the bathroom habits of the 2.6 billion people globally who lack access to basic sanitation. And, if you’re feeling extra bold, find an event near you to take part in The Big Squat -“a movement for the toilet-less.”
Climate change talks spark opportunities for MDGs, Africa
Climate change poses huge threats to development in Africa. It has the potential to undermine recent gains in reducing extreme poverty, while the cost of reaching the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) rises by 40% when climate proofing is taken into account.
However, there are also opportunities if progress is made in the international climate talks taking place in Cancun, Mexico next month. Kenya, for example, has just launched Africa’s first carbon exchange, seeking to take advantage of trade in carbon credits. These credits are purchased by polluting industries in the West and go toward funding clean energy and green growth projects in developing countries.
Indeed, there is increasing realization that African countries could be the global pioneers for a new form of sustainable pro-poor economic development, that meets countries’ needs to reduce energy poverty and create jobs in a way that jumps the traditional carbon-intensive industrialization path.
ONE will be attending next month’s Cancun summit to push this vision and ask Western countries to partner with African governments to deliver the technology and investment needed to make climate-friendly progress toward the MDGs.
Progress in eradicating polio
Whilst there is no cure for polio – it can be prevented through immunization. And thanks to concerted efforts by the World Health Organization (WHO) and many other leading medical and healthcare institutions, immunization programmes around the world are making a real difference.
Polio, short for poliomyelitis, is a highly infectious disease caused by a virus that can damage the nervous system and cause paralysis. Although vaccines and extensive immunization programmes have been successful in stamping out polio in many parts of the world, it is still prevalent in a number of countries.
According to new figures from WHO, there have been 706 cases globally this year, compared with 1,126 cases at this time last year; 17 countries have reported cases in 2010, compared with 21 at this time last year. In Africa, where outbreaks have occurred in recent years, only Nigeria, Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo have reported cases in the past 4 years.
In September, Sierra Leone and Liberia came off the active outbreak list (no cases in the past 6 months), but Russia and Turkmenistan were added to the list.
In a speech at the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) Summit in New York last month, WHO Director-General Margaret Chan underlined the strength that comes from innovative partnerships, the critical role civil society plays in ensuring access and accountability and the ongoing need for funding.
By continuing to work together we can eradicate the disease and achieve the MDG goal of combating HIV/AIDS, TB, malaria and other diseases like polio.
Looking back at the UN Summit
ONE was in New York last week for the UN Summit, and delivered the first stage of our Baby Protest. With the aim of seeing No Child Born with HIV by 2015, the first step of the campaign was the call for World Leaders to agree a plan to stop the fact that over 1,000 babies are born with HIV every day, along with a wide range of other poverty related goals. Tens of thousands of ONE members have joined the Baby Protest so far, and our Executive Director Jamie Drummond presented the campaign to the Senior Advisor of UN chief Ban Ki Moon, to pass on to World Leaders.
The Summit, an important gathering of world leaders, business, and grassroots campaigning organisations, was a positive step forward in the fight against poverty. Collectively they reaffirmed their support for a set of targets to reduce poverty and disease by 2015 (the Millennium Development Goals). As a result a renewed energy was called for, especially towards reducing the number of deaths among young children, and women during pregnancy and childbirth.
However the outcomes of the Summit were just the start of a new phase towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals. The renewed energy must now be used to deliver on some key steps. The first test will be whether World Leaders agree to fully fund the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which is a major source for providing treatment against these diseases, including providing the simple treatment which prevents HIV positive mothers passing the virus on to their babies. Leaders meet in early October to confirm their full contributions to the Global Fund for the next 3 years and our Baby Protest will continue, calling for this to be fully financed. If you haven’t joined the Baby Protest already please take a look and add your name.
Another step required towards achieving the Goals is for European and other industrialised countries to match recent American anti-corruption legislation, which now requires all mining and other extractive industries to declare how much they are paying developing country Government’s. This will now help citizens in those countries to know exactly how much money their governments receive for the right to extract and sell their natural resources, and will prevent them from embezzling parts of this.
Progress also requires all governments to agree to and independently supervised system to both record all the financial and other promises of rich and poor countries towards achieving the goals (e.g. funding for agriculture, education and infrastructure), and then ensuring they deliver them.
So the Summit provided progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals by their due date of 2015, and ONE will be campaigning hard to make sure the renewed energy and focus it produced will be turned into concrete action and tangible results for poor people around the world.
Tackling corruption will fast-track progress on the millennium development goals
Check out this post on the Guardian’s Poverty Matters blog by Paul Collier and ONE’s Executive Director Jamie Drummond:
This week at the UN in New York world leaders are reviewing progress on the millennium development goals (MDGs). Previous meetings have been focused on drumming up more aid. Times are doubly inauspicious for such a purpose: in the OECD fiscal deficits are squeezing aid budgets, while in the poorest countries faster growth is enabling governments to finance more from their own revenues. International aid is still very important, but such summits should no longer be confined to discussions of aid.
The key driver of that faster growth, the bonanza of natural resource extraction, is a two-edged sword. The value of the resources to be extracted from impoverished economies is enormous: if it translates into revenues that are well-spent it will be transformational. But the historical record of resource extraction in these societies is abysmal: money that could have delivered the millennium development goals instead corroded governance. In the poorest societies nearly all resource extraction is done by non-national companies. Only they have the skills and finance necessary for what are often large and complex undertakings. It takes two to tango: the corrosion of governance depended upon the misconduct of these companies.
Of course, most employees in resource extraction companies are honest, yet it is very difficult for the industry to police itself. The incentives for rogue behaviour are intense: executives know that if their company refrains from corruption they are likely to lose contracts to less scrupulous rivals. They know that even if they get a contract, public officials are liable to block implementation unless bribes are paid. In such murky waters murky companies thrive, doing doubtful deals, often ones which they themselves would be unable to implement, but then selling on to the major companies once the bribery is successfully concluded.
The most effective way of preventing this race to the bottom is if all resource extraction companies are subject to the same standards of integrity. The first step was the voluntary standards introduced by the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. Since its launch in 2003, more than 30 governments have made commitments. But voluntary standards can only go so far. The key step beyond voluntarism has just been taken by the US. In July, the Wall Street Reform Act came into force, including the Cardin-Lugar amendment on energy sector transparency. As a result of the amendment, companies registered on the NYSE must present all payments in itemised detail in their annual filings with the Securities Exchange Commission. This enables citizens, media watchdogs and, perhaps most importantly, other companies to monitor closely all payments to government officials. Corruption has suddenly become more difficult.
Clearly, though, it is not sufficient for the US to be acting alone. In the immediate future Britain has to decide whether to match American action or to connive at maintaining an advantage of dishonesty for those British companies not cross-listed in New York. The upcoming British financial services regulation bill is our equivalent of the Wall Street Reform Act. London is home to many of the major companies not covered by Cardin-Lugar, such as Gazprom. Integrity, rather than opportunism, would be consistent with the exemplary emphasis of the coalition on transparency in all areas of British government. In particular the transparency and accountability agenda of the international development secretary, Andrew Mitchell, is high on the MDG summit’s agenda, where Nick Clegg will also have the opportunity of his first official overseas trip as deputy prime minister to make it clear that Britain will not leave the US to stand alone. The coalition’s profoundly moral commitment to raise aid to 0.7% of GDP in the face of fiscal adversity, gives Britain, uniquely among OECD governments, the moral authority to speak up on governance. Concern about governance is not a derisory substitute for our money, but a necessary complement to it.
The summit is the right setting to give impetus to what must become a global process. Anglo-American cooperation is a realistic place to start, but it will not be enough. At a European level, the commission is considering action. The current consultation on the Transparency Directive provides a clear mechanism through which changes can be made in respect of all 27 member states. But resource extraction is now a truly global industry. The smaller companies are usually listed on the Toronto market, and many of the Chinese companies are not listed anywhere. What is needed is global action and the G20 provides the obvious forum. It has already signalled its intention to join the movement for greater transparency with the creation of a corruption working group in Toronto. Co-chaired by France and Indonesia, the group will look at a range of issues, but omission of the natural resource-corruption nexus is inconceivable.
Britain’s aid can now be multiplied many times over if it is the springboard for global adoption of best practise in the governance of natural resources. That offers the fast-track to those previously illusive goals.
- Paul Collier’s latest book is The Plundered Planet
- Jamie Drummond is executive director at ONE
1,000 balloons and a powerful tale
I’m in New York this week as part of the ONE team trying to ensure world leaders meeting at the UN Summit get vital poverty targets (the Millennium Development Goals) back on track. As part of this we wanted to make sure that people could really understand and see the message behind our Baby Protest: that no child need be born with HIV by 2015.
So early yesterday morning, ONE staff helped blow up 1,000 balloons to represent the 1,000 babies that are born with HIV every day, and we asked Fortunata Kasege and her daughter Florida Kasege to join us in New York to tell the world their story.
More than 13 years ago, Fortunata found out that she was HIV-positive. She was devastated – and unbelievably scared –because she was pregnant with her first child. She asked the doctors every question she could, and she discovered that there were medicines that she could take and treatments she could do to make sure that her daughter was born HIV-free.
Florida Kasege is now 13 years old, and is HIV negative. She lives a healthy and normal live for most girls her age: horses, gymnastics, swimming – and is a huge Justin Bieber fan. She constantly reminds her mum to take her medicine and tells everyone she knows how wonderful life is with her beautiful mum. And literally as I write this she is appearing with her mum live on CNN to tell millions of Americans their story and spread the message!
It’s a huge honour to have Fortunata and Florida join us in New York and watching them together it’s clear to see that we know how to prevent babies being born with HIV, the treatment and medicines exist, but what we all need to do is make sure leaders hear our message and make sure that no child is born with HIV by 2015.
The MDG diary of Christy Turlington Burns
Our first post from our special correspondent this week, Christy Turlington Burns!
After weeks of anticipation, MDG week has finally arrived in New York. The focus is of course on the gathering at the United Nations, where world leaders will be taking stock of progress to date and – we hope – making plans for how to reinvigorate efforts in the next five years and beyond.
It’s important to know, however, that there are a seemingly infinite number of other important side events happening, where those of us not cleared into official UN buildings are gathering to do the same. Thankfully there is a growing and impressive roster of individuals and organizations taking part in these events and utilizing the energy this week. And while it’s impossible to participate in everything, I will try and share a snapshot of my experiences on the blog this week.
I kicked off my day this morning with the Women: Inspiration and Enterprise (WIE) Symposium. WIE is a new effort brought together by my friends at the White Ribbon Alliance and it was hosted by Sarah Brown, Arianna Huffington and Donna Karan. The Symposium set out to bring women from politics, philanthropy, media, fashion and the arts all together in one place to focus on the theme of “Women Inspiring Women” and to direct some of this energy specifically towards the issue of maternal health.
I was fortunate enough to participate in one of the many incredible panels called, “Telling Women’s Stories,” where I joined Nora Ephron, Nancy Meyers, Elizabeth Banks and moderator Christine Vachon to talk about how the medium of film can be used to advance women’s issues. It was humbling to take the stage with these icons and veterans of the film industry after only having recently finishing my first documentary film, “No Woman, No Cry.” I was thrilled to have the opportunity to discuss my hopes for the film, which shares the personal stories of at risk pregnant women around the world, and to discuss ways the film could be used as an advocacy tool.
The WIE Symposium was extremely inspirational and a testament to the dedication of the many women working to empower one another around the world – from the poignant remarks of Melanne Verveer, who stressed the importance of investing in women to create change and progress, to the words of Maria Eitel, who spoke about the tremendous progress we’ve seen with regard to girls and women at the top of the agenda. So while we now have the voices to encourage progress, we need the movement of resources to see results. After this day, I’m feeling quite inspired.
1 important goal
While we wish we could attend all the events happening this week in NYC, it’s just not possible. So here’s a great post from our colleague Nora Coghlan on the MDGs and education.
Earlier this morning, I listened to a powerful panel of speakers –- including former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, UK Secretary of State for International Development Andrew Mitchell, Queen Rania of Jordan and World Bank Managing Director Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala –- rally around a single issue: education for all by 2015.
Under the banner of 1GOAL, a global campaign for universal education that recruited 18 million supporters during this summer’s World Cup, the panelists kicked off a week of MDG-related discussions by underscoring the fact that with its links to democracy, family health and economic growth, education is central to meeting all the MDGs and achieving long-term development beyond 2015.
More than one of the panelists cited this new Lancet study, which credits women’s education for half of the reduction in child mortality over the past few decades, as the latest in a growing mountain of evidence that says education leads to progress on multiple fronts.
It wasn’t all talk, though.
Bono on the MDGs in the New York Times
As world leaders converge on New York for the UN General Assembly meeting this week, ONE cofounder Bono writes today in his column for the New York Times that one test of the meeting’s success will be whether leaders recommit to the Millennium Development Goals, “possibly the most visionary deal that most people have never heard of.”
Bono writes of the many successes achieved in part because of the goals – from millions of lives saved from preventable disease, to tens of millions more kids in school – and calls on leaders to do three specific things: 1.) fully fund the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria and the campaign to ensure no child is born with HIV by 2015, 2.) enact transparency legislation in Britain, the EU and across the G20 that echoes the recently passed US legislation requiring energy companies to report payments to government officials and 3.) better track world leaders pledges and progress against them, so we know what has been promised and whether it has been delivered.
You can read Bono’s full column here.
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About the Blog
The International ONE Blog is a daily log of the anti-poverty movement. The site is operated by ONE staff, with guest contributions from ONE volunteers, members and allies.
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TAGS: Bob Geldof, Millennium Development Goals