The Importance of Educating Girls and Women – The Fight Against Poverty in African Rural Communities
The Millennium Declaration, adopted by world leaders in 2000, set ambitious goals and targets to be achieved by 2015. At the end of 2007, just past the midpoint of this process, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) seem almost as elusive as they were in 20001.
The Fight Against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria : Past Progress and Hope for the Future
Each year, 2.5 million people become infected with HIV, 8 million contract tuberculosis (TB), and between 300 million and 500 million fall ill from malaria. Together, these diseases kill more than 5 million people per year, the equivalent of a full 747 airplane crashing every 44 minutes1.
Agriculture Leads to the MDGs: Rural Development in Africa
Agricultural productivity improvements have been a major driving force of social and economic change in human societies for millennia. The traditional production of crops and livestock fulfilled household requirements for food, fiber, fuel, medicine and other essential consumables.
Reducing Child Mortality – The Challenges in Africa
In 1960, Africa contributed to approximately 14 per cent of the global child mortality burden. Today, sub-Saharan Africa alone accounts for almost 50 per cent of child mortality, although it constitutes only 11 per cent of the world population. If Millennium Development Goal 4 -- reduce child mortality by two thirds -- is to be achieved, Africa has the challenge of accelerating the narrowing of this gap.
Gender Equality Is Key to Achieving the MDGs: Women and Girls Are Central to Development
One of nine children growing up from a small town in an African country, Meaza was told: Oh, you're so smart and have so much potential, it's too bad you're not a boy. But her mother, who was illiterate, believed her children deserved better. When I think of my mother, I think about how women are prevented from reaching their potential, she says.
Reproductive Health in the African Region. What Has Been Done to Improve the Situation?
Africa accounts for about one tenth of the world's population and 20 per cent of global births; yet, nearly half of the mothers who die during pregnancy and childbirth are from this region. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that poor reproductive health accounts for up to 18 per cent of the global burden of disease, and 32 per cent of the total burden of disease for women of reproductive age.
A Prehistory of the Millennium Development Goals: Four Decades of Struggle for Development in the 51³Ô¹Ï
When the 51³Ô¹Ï General Assembly adopted the Millennium Declaration in 2000, the goals and targets it set in the section on development ultimately became known as the Millennium Development Goals.
Promoting Gender Equality in Muslim Contexts – Women's Voices Must Not Be Silenced
A question that is sometimes posed is whether women in Muslim contexts are entitled to equal rights. Are their culture and religion opposed to women having equal rights? To answer this, let us recognize the fact that nearly all the countries with Muslim majorities are signatories to international agreements advancing women's rights.
Poverty, Malaria and the Right to Health : Exploring the Connections
Malaria is an extremely serious human rights issue. Six out of eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) cannot be achieved without tackling this disease. It is both a cause and a consequence of poverty. Its impact is especially ferocious on the poorest: those least able to afford preventive measures and medical treatment.
Promoting the MDGs: The Role of Employment and Decent Work
The 2000 UN Millennium Declaration, from which the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) emerged, focuses on development and poverty eradication, through peace and security, human rights, democracy and good governance. It identifies the fundamental values of freedom, equality, solidarity, tolerance, respect for nature and shared responsibility.
Improving Maternal Health Through Education: Safe Motherhood Is a Necessity
Education improves health, while health improves learning potential. Education and health complement, enhance and support each other; together, they serve as the foundation for a better world. To be able to read, write and calculate has been acknowledged as a human right.
Gender Disparity in Primary Education: The Experience in India
The primary education system in India suffers from numerous shortcomings, not the least being a dire lack of the financial resources required to set up a nationwide network of schools. Traditionally, the sector has been characterized by poor infrastructure, underpaid teaching staff, disillusioned parents and an unmotivated student population.
Making Pregnancy Safer in Least Developed Countries The Challenge of Delivering Available Services
The international community came together 20 years ago in Nairobi, Kenya, to launch the Safe Motherhood Initiative and highlight the most striking inequity in public health. This global initiative was developed to generate political will, identify effective interventions and mobilize resources that would rectify a horrifying injustice.
Food Security and the Challenge of the MDGs: The Road Ahead
In their solemn Millennium Declaration of 2000, world leaders committed themselves to spare no effort to halve, by 2015, the proportion of the world's people who suffer from poverty and hunger. Just seven years remain for us to meet that momentous challenge.
Health and the MDGs: The Challenges Ahead
In 2000, the international community endorsed the Millennium Declaration, which sets out an historic commitment to eradicate extreme poverty and improve the health of the world's poorest people by 2015.