In Action on the MDGs - Making NOISE for the MDGS and taking it up a notch

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The Make NOISE to End Poverty Worldwide in support of the Millennium Development Goals or MDGs is still growing. Supporting the MDGs is the primary reason for this blog. So if anybody else is out there doing the same its worth reporting. There are two basic approaches to reporting on the Millennium Development Goals - education and inspiration. Here are examples of both.

Kathy Bushkin Calvin, the CEO of the UN Foundation, wrote recently that,

You may not have realized it before, but your actions have moved us closer to solving some of the world's biggest problems. You are helping advance the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Next month, the UN will convene world leaders to review our progress on the MDGs. This important summit in New York needs your voice and support -- together, we're going to make significant progress toward ending poverty and hunger, improving the health of mothers and children, fighting preventable diseases, and bringing universal energy access to all. We are going to do all this by supporting the United Nations and working in partnership to focus attention and resources where they matter most. We know the UN is the institution with the international reach and capacity to accelerate our goals and improve lives.

Well, the truth is that she was writing about all of us taking part in this effort. Problem is that while millions are taking part online and especially in the streets, there still isn't enough awareness in the mainstream of the developed countries, particularly in the United States. I could be wrong about other parts of the world, but I suspect not. The challenge, as I see it is still a matter of education. The UN Foundation has put together a resource to help people learn about the Millennium Development Goals, ( I will put aside the question as to why they did not just use this blog for the time being ;-}) which if they want me to share to increase their impact, I am more than happy to do so.

The MDGs are not only a "to-do" list for the UN and world leaders, but as people with a global perspective, they are our to-do list as well.

Find out more about the MDGs and how you can help advance them on our new "MDGs in Action" page

Raymond C. Offenheiser of the Oxfam America Advocacy Fund is asking us to tell President Obama - Take it up a notch! Having a plan for addressing the Millennium Development Goals is a great first step – but it's not enough!
 We need to tell President Obama we need a real development strategy that addresses the root causes of poverty.

He is also focusing on the upcoming Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Summit at which world leaders will meet as part of the UN to discuss how to end hunger, send kids to school and keep women healthy the world over. Those things so many of us can take for granted.

But without a concrete strategy from the United States to go beyond the MDGs, we'll never reach them – leaving millions without a way out of poverty.

You and I know the stark reality for millions of people around the globe - every night, millions of people go to bed hungry. Every morning, people wake up without water to bathe or cook with. Every day, families have young children die from completely preventable diseases.

Issues like hunger, poverty, health – these are the things the Millennium Development Goals are meant to address. But today, we are vastly off the mark towards reaching these goals by 2015, the date set by world leaders to eradicate this kind of debilitating poverty.

And, without a real global development strategy from the United States – one that serves as a compass for efforts to end global poverty – we will come up short. President Obama must lead the world in providing a clear, comprehensive strategy, one that will maximize our ability to reach the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.

P.S. After you take action, you can get even more involved by checking out our Facebook Photo Petition to President Obama.Take action today, and we will automatically redirect you to our Facebook petition!

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• Kathy Bushkin Calvin: Why We Shouldn't Look Away From the Mistreatment of Girls Worldwide (huffingtonpost.com)
• TEDxChange: Learn more about the Millennium Development Goals (ted.com)
• Make noise for the MDGs this September with Stand Up, Take Action! (one.org)
• FG decries slow implementation of MDG projects by states (vanguardngr.com)
• US gets a strategy to meet the Millennium Development Goals - please explain (aidwatchers.com)
• Breaking: White House releases MDG Plan (one.org)
• GOOD contest winner celebrates MDG #4 (ted.com)
• World leaders urged to `hold the line' (news.theage.com.au)
• Join the Day of Action & Achieve the MDGs (one.org)

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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• New UN Entity Strengthens Global Efforts for Women & Girls (prweb.com)
• New BBC series on the MDG's (one.org)
• Women's eNews Examines Progress Towards MDGs In Bangladesh (medicalnewstoday.com)
• Time for Canada to step up on the MDGS (one.org)
• Tell Obama to Keep His Promise to Cut World Poverty in Half! (socialactions.net)
• Not a beer (one.org)
• MDGs and 2020 Goals: Nigeria's Hidden potentials (vanguardngr.com)
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