Powering the MDGs through Partnerships

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On Tuesday, I wrote about Congress hearing testimony on Millennium Development Goals for the first time. The House Committee on Foreign Affairs heard testimony on the Millennium Development Goals from John McArthur, CEO, (pdf) Millennium Promise, Scott Ratzan, Vice President, Global Health, Government Affairs and Policy, Johnson & Johnson and Kathy Calvin, CEO, United Nations Foundation.

UN Foundation CEO Kathy Bushkin Calvin testified before Congress about how collaboration and partnerships are key to advancing the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015 (Read the full testimony here (pdf)).

The UN Foundation Team reminds us that:

Just as no nation should go it alone in the international arena, no single player can achieve the MDGs. From bishops to basketball players, collaborations across government agencies, corporations, foundations and individuals are absolutely essential to eradicating extreme poverty and bringing the MDGs within reach.

• Nothing But Nets
• Measles Initiative
• Global Polio Eradication Initiative
• Girl Up
• mHealth Alliance

The House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight, will soon be considering legislation to rewrite the Foreign Assistance Act. "Achieving the United Nations Millennium Development Goals: Progress Through Partnerships," is an essential means for creating smart, effectively-coordinated global poverty solutions – like those linked above.

The Millennium Development Goals can be achieved but only with pragmatic solutions backed by political will. There is no lack of do-able, pragmatic solutions, the problem is political will and unless the United States finds the moral fiber to take a leading role in this endeavor the world will fall further and further behind in keeping this promise.

Today: A First: Congress to Hear Testimony on MDGs

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A reposting and updating of information from:

Bulletin from the cause: UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)

Go to Cause

Posted By: Millennium Promise To: Members in UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)

A First: Congress to Hear Testimony on MDGs Today!

Dear Supporters of the Millennium Development Goals,

We are excited to announce that Today, July 27, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs will hear testimony on the Millennium Development Goals--it is the first time Congress has ever held a hearing on the MDGs!

John McArthur, CEO, Millennium Promise will testify alongside Kathy Calvin, CEO, United Nations Foundation, and Scott Ratzan, Vice President, Global Health, Government Affairs and Policy, Johnson & Johnson.

The congressional committee wants to hear about the status of the Millennium Development Goals—the world's integrated targets to reduce extreme poverty by 2015—and discuss specifically what steps should be taken to ensure the achievement of the Goals.

You may watch a live feed of the hearing here: http://www.hcfa.house.gov/

On the bottom left-hand side of the page you'll find the link to the live feed. The link is only put up when something is being broadcast -- there is currently a picture inserted in the corner as a placeholder where the link will appear for the live feed.

Of course, if you are in DC you are welcome to attend the hearing in person!
Video and text of the testimony will available soon on the Millennium Promise website (www.millenniumpromise.org).

Here are further details:

Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights and Oversight
Russ Carnahan (D-MO), Chairman

Achieving the United Nations Millennium Development Goals:
Progress through Partnerships

Rayburn House Office Building
Room 2172
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
9:30 AM

Witnesses:
John McArthur, Ph.D.
Chief Executive Officer
Millennium Promise

Ms. Kathy Calvin
Chief Executive Officer
United Nations Foundation

Scott C. Ratzan, M.D.
Vice President, Global Health, Government Affairs and Policy
Johnson & Johnson

Thank you!

--The Millennium Promise Team

Call to Action

Support the cause. Be counted: I Read This

Obama Promised to Cut World Poverty in Half - Hold Him to It!

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The promise of the Millennium Development Goals is not some recent action by our governments. It is actually more than a promise, it is a commitment defined through the cooperative agreement of 189 nations that signed onto the Millennium Declaration on 8 September 2000. Numerous promises have been made since then, some closer to home than others.

Andrew at Care2 and ThePetitionSite Team reminds us that last year, President Obama stood before the UN and pledged to the world that the U.S. will support the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and approach next year's summit with a global plan to fight world poverty.

This lifesaving pledge is due this September and we need more than just talk. Urge President Obama to follow through on his words and take the lead on achieving the MDGs by 2015 »

If these goals are achieved, world poverty will be cut by half, tens of millions of lives will be saved, and billions more people will have the opportunity to benefit from the global economy. Help cut poverty in half

Update: I was signatory No. # 12,111: they are looking for 15,000, which to my mind is far too low.

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The Cardin-Lugar Transparency Amendment can help in achieving the Millennium Development Goals

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A little over a week ago, David Lane, President and CEO of ONE let his fellow ONE members know that they helped score a big, big victory for the world's poor in the halls of high finance.

The Cardin-Lugar Transparency amendment to the financial regulation bill that passed will now become law.

This is a victory of public transparency for the benefit of citizens.

Developing countries far too often see money from their natural resources end up in the pockets of corrupt government officials. But now, citizens will get to see exactly where this money is going—which means they can hold their governments accountable and make sure funds are spent on health care, clean water and the everyday necessities that everybody needs to lead healthy, productive lives. It boils down to this:

Hidden transactions between corrupt governments of developing countries and the multinational corporations that do business with them will now be brought into the light of day.

This means that any company listed on the New York Stock Exchange will be required to report if they pay a foreign governments to drill for oil and gas or mine gold and diamonds in their countries. As our friends at Care2 tell us.

When governments are transparent, people can hold their governments accountable. When people hold their governments accountable, real, positive change is possible.

This is a step in the right direction for transparency is an essential ingredient in getting the Millennium Development Goals met. We need to enable people around the world to be able to hold their governments responsible, which means we need to first make them aware of the challenges and provide them the means of overcoming those challenges. Our governments need to keep an eye on global businesses and people need to keep an eye on both. One of the purposes of this blog is to contribute in the endeavor.

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Articles from Diigo Make Noise MDGs 07/12/2010

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• What Next for the Millennium Development Goals? "> - Annotated

  It is just about time for yet another round of international development goals. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) - the eight goals, 20 targets and 60+ indicators that came out of the United Nations in 2000 - are coming to the end of their natural life. Although the official end date is not until 2015, if your country is not close to reaching the MDGs now, there is simply not much time to catch up. (Helpfully, the UN's MDG Monitor website counts down to 2015 by the second.)

  tags: wiley millennium development goals mdgs

  • So what should MDGs redux look like if we want them to be constructive and not merely more of the same? A good place to start is to consider the pluses and minuses of the current set. On the positive side, the MDGs have been hugely successful at fundraising. The MDGs evolved out of a set of goals created at the OECD in the mid-1990s as a direct attempt to try to reverse the steep cuts in foreign aid after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Total aid plummeted by more than 20 per cent between 1992 and 1997, prompting waves of panic within the aid community. At the time of the September 2000 UN Summit when the MDGs were adopted unanimously by the largest-ever gathering of heads of state, total aid was around $60 billion per year. By 2005 the level had doubled to around $120 billion and it has hovered around this level ever since. Coincidentally, a series of 'MDG costing studies' suggested that just such a doubling was necessary for those goals to be achieved (Devarajan et al., 2002; Zedillo, 2001).

• United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women — UN Women "> - Annotated

  In an historic move, the United Nations General Assembly voted unanimously on 2 July 2010 to create a new entity to accelerate progress in meeting the needs of women and girls worldwide.

  tags: mdg3 UNDP gender-equity millennium development goals

  • The establishment of the UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women — to be known as UN Women — is a result of years of negotiations between UN Member States and advocacy by the global women’s movement. It is part of the UN reform agenda, bringing together resources and mandates for greater impact.

• UNFPA - Countdown to 2015: Maternal, Newborn & Child Survival "> - Annotated

  The report provides a mix of good and bad news. One good news message is that the under-5 child mortality rate has declined by 28 percent, from an estimated 90 deaths per 1000 live births in 1990 to 65 deaths per 1000 in 2008, accounting for a reduction of nearly 4 million child deaths per year.

  tags: unfpa mdg5 population millennium development goals

  • This report collects and analyses data from the 68 countries that account for at least 95 per cent of maternal and child deaths. It produces country profiles that present coverage data for a range of key health services, including:
    

    • Contraceptive use.
    • Antenatal care.
    • Skilled attendance at delivery.
    • Postnatal care.
    • Child health.
    • Financial investments in maternal, newborn and child health.
    • Equity of access, health systems and policy.

• New Statesman - An enlightenment fit for the 21st century "> - Annotated

  The Tories’ “big society” challenges the people, and not just governments, to embrace change. To effect its own change for the better, Labour and the left must imbibe new ideas about human psychology and learn how to speak a collective language of ethics.

  tags: Enlightenment Royal Society of Arts 21st-century Tories

  • The Royal Society of Arts has a new motto: 21st-century enlightenment. It pays tribute to the 18th-century founders of the society and is a statement about the RSA's role today. We have been asking how Enlightenment principles have come to be interpreted and whether they should be rethought in the light of today's challenges and important new insights into human nature. Although this may sound a long way from the more prosaic debates in Labour's leadership campaign, perhaps that process might benefit from imagining a radical politics that seeks not merely to respond to modern values, but to shape them.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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Articles from Diigo Make Noise MDGs 07/11/2010

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• Home - Wiley Online Library Transition Information

  Wiley Online Library will host the world’s broadest and deepest multidisciplinary collection of online resources covering life, health and physical sciences, social science and the humanities. Built on the latest technology and designed with extensive input from scholars around the world, Wiley Online Library will deliver seamless integrated access to over 4 million articles from 1500 journals, 9000 books, and hundreds of reference works, laboratory protocols and databases from John Wiley & Sons and key imprints including Wiley-Blackwell, Wiley-VCH etc

  tags: online home wiley

• UN Foundation and Devex — Making the Millennium Development Goals Happen "> - Annotated
  
  Over the coming months, Devex will host a global conversation on each of the eight Millennium Development Goals – we want you to share your success stories, thoughts on what obstacles remain, and ideas for how the development community is Making the Millennium Development Goals Happen.

  tags: millennium development goals millennium campaign mdgs United Nations

  • As development professionals, you are working towards realizing the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – we want to hear from you about the on-the-ground successes and challenges you've experienced working on international development projects around the world.

• - World Population Day 2010 "> - Annotated

  This year World Population Day highlights the importance of data for development. The focus is on the 2010 round of the population and housing census, data analysis for development and UNFPA’s lead role in population and development.

  tags: United Nations world population

  • Reliable data makes a difference, and the key is to collect, analyze and disseminate data in a way that drives good decision making. The numbers that emerge from data collection can illuminate important trends. What striking situation does research reveal in your country? What do the numbers tell you about progress toward meeting the MDGs? Are certain groups getting left behind?

• The Responsibility to Protect—Five Years On

  The Responsibility to Protect (RtoP) has become a prominent feature in international debates about preventing and responding to genocide and mass atrocities. Since its adoption in 2005, it has been discussed in relation to a dozen major crises and been the subject of discussion at the UN Security Council and General Assembly. This article takes stock of the past five years and examines three questions about RtoP: What is its function? Is it a norm, and, if so, what sort?

  tags: international UN Security

• The Environment and Climate Change: Editors' Overview. Takatoshi ITO. 2010; Asian Economic Policy Review - Wiley InterScience

  Asian Economic Policy Review

  tags: millennium development goals mdg7 environmental sustainability

• Reaching a Global Agreement on Climate Change: What are the Obstacles? "> - Annotated

  A successor accord to the Kyoto Protocol was supposed to be wrapped up in Copenhagen in December 2009, but negotiations are now expected to extend through the South African UNFCCC conference in 2011 since the Copenhagen talks failed to yield a binding agreement. To reach a comprehensive deal, major gaps between developing and developed countries must be narrowed. The gaps include the character of common but differentiated responsibilities, financial support, technology transfer, and trade subsidies and sanctions. The paper concludes with some options and recommendations.

  tags: millennium development goals mdg7 environmental sustainability

  • Reaching a Global Agreement on Climate Change: What are the Obstacles?

• Reconciling Economic Growth and Carbon Mitigation: Challenges and Policy Options in China "> - Annotated

  In this paper, we review some of the climate burden-sharing proposals raised by Chinese scholars to shed some light on China's perspective on the post-Kyoto climate architecture. Then we summarize China's current pollution abatement policies and measures, and analyze some potential policy instruments for China to reconcile its future economic growth and carbon mitigation, as well as some practical design and enforcement issues to be considered for the near term

  tags: millennium development goals mdg7 China environmental sustainability

  • As the biggest carbon emitter in the world, China is facing tremendous pressure domestically and internationally. To promote the international efforts to tackle climate change, the Chinese government announced its 2020 carbon intensity target and is actively taking part in the international climate negotiations.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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Getting Ideas from Hans Rosling on controlling global population growth through better child health

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Tomorrow is another of the Blogger Unite events that I am supporting through this blog. This time it is in support of the United Nation's World Population Day.

Back on World Population Day 2008 the goal was to reaffirm the right of people to plan their families by encouraging activities, events and information that helped make this right a reality — especially for those who often have the hardest time getting the information and services they need to plan their families, such as marginalized populations and young people.

When people can plan their families, they can plan their lives. They can plan to beat poverty. They can plan on healthier mothers and children. They can plan to gain equality for women.

This year World Population Day 2010 highlights the importance of data for development. The focus is on the 2010 round of the population and housing census, data analysis for development and UNFPA's lead role in population and development.

Reliable data makes a difference, and the key is to collect, analyze and disseminate data in a way that drives good decision making. The numbers that emerge from data collection can illuminate important trends. What striking situation does research reveal in your country? What do the numbers tell you about progress toward meeting the MDGs? Are certain groups getting left behind?

This makes perfect sense considering the United Nation's focus on the Millennium Development Goals Summit planned for this September. Over-population has a direct impact on all of the Millennium Development Goals. The Video from TED.com featuring Hans Rosling on global population growth connects the idea of empowering the poor, especially women, and taking steps to control world population growth. What he demonstrates is that achieving the Millennium Development Goals, especially Millennium Development Goal 4. Child Health will have a significant impact on population growth.

So the only way of really getting world population to stop is to continue to improve child survival to 90 percent. That's why investments by Gates Foundation, UNICEF and aid organizations, together with national government in the poorest countries, are so good. Because they are actually helping us to reach a sustainable population size of the world. We can stop at nine billion if we do the right things. Child survival is the new dream. It's only children surviving that we will stop population growth.

Others have put forward a similar perspective in the past.

Sustainability And Collier And Ending The Homo-Defictus Age

The Millennium Development Goals remain the most extensive, far reaching set of programs to address this planet's greatest global concerns. There is not a lack of ideas, there is a lack of will and of awareness.

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Telling President Obama: First Lead America to Clean Energy Now Then the World

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The Environmental Defense Action Fund put out the video above to make the point that

As far back as Richard Nixon, every president has called for energy reform and action to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. And for 40 years, not a single one followed through forcibly enough to make change happen.

They are looking to encourage President Obama to turn his public commitment to passing strong climate and energy reform in 2010 into action. They need at least 50,000 signatures (click here) before the Senate comes back to work next week to send a strong message.

We have never been closer to success. What we have so far is our President's support. What we need is a full court press by White House officials to do what it takes to get the 60 votes needed to secure Senate passage of a bill.

Nothing short of that will do. History will be made this month. Please help us make this a chapter with a happy ending.

Getting an Energy Bill in the United States is important but it is not the end of the matter. We still need to address Millennium Development Goal No. 7. Environmental Sustainability. My letter to President Obama was geared in that direction.

Dear President Obama

You have given strong voice to the need to pass a comprehensive climate and energy bill to end our over-dependence on oil and other fossil fuels and to build America's clean energy future. Only then will we have the moral authority to help lead the rest of the world to a sustainable future. We thank you for your inspiring words. But now your words must be followed by your actions. As the BP Gulf Disaster makes all too tragically clear, the time for half measures is over. Now is the time to act.

Unless we get our own house in order, we will have little ability to convince the rest of the developed world and emerging markets that an environmentally sustainable planet as envisioned by the Seventh Millennium Development Goal is not a desirable objective but an essential one. We need your constant, hands-on leadership to apply maximum pressure on the Senate to pass a strong bill. And we need you to direct your all-star team of cabinet members and White House staff to engage directly in making it happen. Failure simply cannot be an option.

If the USA fails in this then there is little hope for the rest of the world, because even if they to agree to take action or impact will be too great for it to make a difference. We stand with you, Mr. President, and pledge to do our part to maintain unrelenting grassroots pressure to pass a strong bill. The time is now. The solution is clear. This is America's chance to finally break our addiction to oil and other fossil fuels. Please step up and use the full power of your good office to pass a strong climate and energy bill in the Senate this month. We cannot wait any longer.

Brian Dowling

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