Let No Family Go Hungry But on What Terms

Sphere: Related Content The Stand Up Take Action and the UN MDG Summit are now both over and in my view it was all too little and too much at the same time, but more on that later.The events of the past week have induced me to change the focus with this blog to trying to go a bit deeper and include more relevant information on particular issues,with each post, especially those before Congress.
So while, I will still be responding when someone like Emily V. of Care2 and ThePetitionSite Team urges us to tell Congress to enact a global strategy to reduce world hunger, I will also be examining the issue more closely and raising questions.

Food.- It's one of our most basic needs. But the number of people suffering from chronic hunger is increasing every year. Today, one-sixth of the world's population goes hungry.The Global Food Security Act now before Congress would make it faster and cheaper to feed the more than 1 billion people facing chronic hunger. If passed, this bill would give more flexibility in food emergencies, like buying food locally and regionally, as well as providing social safety net programs for the world's poor. Plus, by developing long-term agricultural projects, it will help women farmers to increase their income and pull their families out of poverty. Tell Congress to pass the Global Food Security Act »

The overall sentiment behind the Care2 request is great but the details, as often is the case with these calls for action, are sparse. This involves a controversial bill S. 384: Global Food Security Act of 2009, which at least in its earlier form, was opposed by a number of organizations, some of which have been supported in this blog.
The Global Food Security Act has recently had a hearing before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. A video of the hearing is provided below.xx
[Some technical information first part starts at 19:38 and second Part starts at 122:20]
Committee on Foreign Relations: concluded a hearing to examine promoting global food security, focusing on the next steps for Congress and the Administration, after receiving testimony from Jacob Lew, Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources; Rajiv Shah, Administrator, United States Agency for International Development (USAID); and Global Agricultural Development Initiative Cochairs, Dan Glickman, Washington, DC, and Catherine Bertini, Cortland, New York, both of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.

This blog has looked at the issue of Global Food Security before with the post Commitment to Global Food Security Sadly Lacking. All of the Millennium Development Goals, including Millennium Development Goal 1. End Hunger not only need to be attained by 2015, they also need to be sustained after that and that will not happen without a viable global food security program.
The level of disagreement, among those who would be assumed to be on the same side of an issue having to do with feeding the developing world, has a fairly wide range. The specific organizations opposing S.384 back in 2009 and perhaps still so today are a more numerous as well as a more varied crowd. One of the important concepts raised in this argument is balancing Food Security with Food Sovereignty. This is the sticking point with S. 384 from me. It seemingly places Millennium Development Goal 1. End Hunger in opposition with Millennium Development Goal 8. Global Partnership.

Some are opposed because they see the legislation as being in contrast with the principles of their organization. Whether this remains true for the final version of the bill remains to be seen.Many progressive organizations accuse the bill of being written in favor of large industrial agricultural firms, specifically in this case Monsanto.
Some organizations are basically opposed to genetic modification in any form as a means of feeding the world. At this point, I am not, but I will be studying this and the supposed negative effects of the so-called Green Revolution more closely.

Others see the failure of the Green Revolution being a result of political neglect not bad science.
Timothy Geithner and Bill Gates: A New Initiative to Feed the World

We should not be facing this challenge today. In the 1960s and '70s the world understood that agricultural development was an indispensable tool in alleviating hunger, reducing poverty, and driving economic growth. A combination of new, high-yielding crops developed by scientists such as Norman Borlaug and sustained investments from the U.S. and other countries helped save hundreds of millions of people from starvation in India, Mexico and elsewhere. Yet during the past three decades the world's interest in agriculture waned. Donor nations moved on to focus on other issues. The result is that there has been a sharp drop in aid for agriculture. In 1979, nearly 18% of all official development assistance world-wide went to agriculture. In 2008, about 5% did. Timothy Geithner and Bill Gates: A New Initiative to Feed the World - WSJ.com

The truth is that I am very likely relatively more conservative than many of those in the organizations opposing this bill. I do see technology as being an essential tool for meeting the Millennium Development Goals. I also remain an advocate of free enterprise and social enterprise as a means of facing these challenges. This can make for some strange political bedfellows on various issues (in this case Geithner), which means more thinking on my part on the subject.
Even though I may have some issues with Mr. Geithner, I still come down at this point with favoring the bill. My rationale is that CARE Urges Passage of Global Food Security Act; Commends Bipartisan Support in Both Senate and House. Besides the fact that they are making the request for support, their reasons for doing so seems not to be tied to the question of genetic engineering, rather they seem to have more on-the-ground pragmatic concerns related to their own efforts to get food to those most in need.

"Transporting food from the United States to hungry people in developing countries is expensive, slow and unpredictable -- it does not make sense to spend 65 cents of every dollar in food aid on processing and transportation," said Dr. Gayle.

CARE places special emphasis on investing in women and girls' empowerment. Passage of the Global Food Security Act could benefit families and move entire communities out of poverty by providing women farmers access to the necessary tools, skills and financial resources to feed their families and get their crops to local markets. ONE also seems to be supporting the bill as some of the articles cited below indicate.
I have been going back and forth on this issue. Here is some information on the Lugar­Casey
 Global
Food
 Security 
Act
 (S.
384)
 that lists organizations for and against the bill from 2009.
Below is some more information on the organizations that were opposing S.384 in 2009, though some of the links are old it appears until the language in the bill is changed most still do.

• Food First
• Policy Brief: Why the Lugar-Casey Global Food Security Act will Fail to Curb Hunger
• New Food Sovereignty book released by Fernwood Press, Food First Books, and Fahamu

• Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns
• Interfaith community response to Feed the Future, the U.S. Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative
• Read more about the MOGC's analysis of Feed the Future in the July-August 2010 issue of NewsNotes.

• National Family Farm Coalition
• Farmer to Farmer Campaign on Genetic Engineering
• U.S. WORKING GROUP ON THE FOOD CRISIS CRITICIZES GLOBAL HARVEST INITIATIVE’S FAILED IDEAS TO FEED THE WORLD

• Union of Concerned Scientists
• UCS calls on Congress to make the bill technology neutral by stripping a provision that appears to mandate research employing genetic engineering.

• Organic Consumers Association
  • US Senate, Bill Gates Give the Planet a Middle Finger for Earth Day

• WHY Hunger Organization
• Human Rights: Foundation for Progress on the MDGs
  

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UN: Millennium Development Goals Still Realistic Yet Still Out of Reach

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Today starts the Stand Up Take Action End Poverty Now! 3 day worldwide mobilization. Our Bloggers Unite event Make NOISE to End Poverty Worldwide is taking part online. Right now we have 39 bloggers including myself tapped to do posts over this weekend in anticipation of the UN MDG Summit next week.

There are numerous opportunities to learn about or make known your support for the Millennium Development Goals. For the next 3 days thousands of change-agent organizations across the globe, large and small, will be inspiring millions of people to Make NOISE in support of the Millennium Development Goals. Avaaz had a petition, which I signed, urging world leaders to step up their commitments to end extreme poverty, and save millions of mothers and children.

Millions of pregnant women and children die every year because of malnutrition or inadequate health services. It's shocking, but if our governments meet aid promises to women and children at the poverty summit later this month, it is avoidable.

Ten years ago world leaders committed to drastically reduce the disgraceful number of maternal deaths by 2015, but in fact aid levels remain shamefully low. Now, some governments could be prepared to boost aid for mothers and babies, but they need massive public support to get all governments to step up.

In days our leaders meet in New York. Let's build a global outcry against needless deaths. Sign the petition below to double aid for maternal and child health -- it will be delivered to key government leaders inside the meeting in New York.

There is still the weekend before the UN Summit on the Millennium Development Goals begins so here is the link to the petition. Right now they are at 152,338 and are trying to reach their target of 175,000.

It has been a mixed bag over the last 10 years since the Millennium Declaration was signed by 189 nations, during which although significant advances have been made to tackle poverty there is still plenty left to do.

-- one-third fewer mothers have died during childbirth due to increased aid and investment in maternal health care. But millions of pregnant mothers are still dying needlessly and every year 9 million children die before their 5th birthday.

There is already a specific mechanism to deliver aid for HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis, but no similar system exists to support health for mothers and children. Experts feel one of the best ways to have an immediate impact is to ensure that aid is doubled and pooled and coordinated to effectively bring health care to the mothers and children who need it the most.

• Oxfam, "Minimal G8 Maternal Health Initiative sends disturbing message to women and girls":

• “The G8 commitment to maternal health is extremely disappointing,” said Robert Fox, Executive Director of Oxfam Canada. “Last year in L’Aquila the G8 committed $22 billion over three years for food security. This year when the focus is on women’s health, they can muster only $5 billion over five years, $7.3 billion, if you include the longer list of donors.”

  This sends a disturbing message to the women and girls of Africa, Asia and Latin America where nearly 1,000 women die each day in childbirth and in complications related to pregnancy, according to Oxfam.

• The Countdown to 2015 Initiative tracks coverage levels for health interventions proven to reduce maternal, newborn and child mortality:
• 
  

There are only 5 years left to meet the deadline for the MDG targets. Avaaz correctly points out the danger of our leaders using the recession to shirk responsibilities to help the world's poorest. This despite the likely result of losing the progress already made and that helping to poor could in fact according to Joseph Stigliz would help the world's economy not hurt it. It is also in spite of the fact that the Millennium Development Goals are still seen as achievable.

UN: Millennium Development Goals still realistic

A new draft declaration on the UN Millennium Development Goals -- which the UN will formally adopt later in the month -- finds that the program's aims are still achievable despite recent setbacks, including the global financial crisis. Though the global depression continues to represent an obstacle to realizing the MDGs, UN officials say that through effective implementation and renewed commitment they can be achieved even in the poorest countries. The Millennium Development Goals, agreed to by the UN in 2000, aim to slash poverty, reduce hunger and improve gender equality worldwide, among other targets. Reuters

Avaaz and others are advocating for an approach agreed to by SciDev.Net which argues that the Next Millennium Development Goals 'should be more holistic'.

"MDGs do address many but not all key development challenges," said Andy Haines, director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. "This report for the first time really casts an interdisciplinary spotlight on the MDGs, what they will have achieved and where we need to go afterwards."

"The broad picture of MDGs is patchy progress, and not at a pace capable of achieving the goals by 2015," said Jeff Waage, director of the LIDC, who added: "Is this just a matter of effort or are there fundamental problems with the MDGs themselves that will hamper their achievement?"

All of this flurry of activity is in anticipation of UN taking up MDGs as 2015 deadline looms.

Governments around the world are looking to forge agreement on a strategy for the last five years before the Millennium Development Goals deadline amid projections that none of the poverty, health or education milestones will be reached. "The final five years of the goals are going to require two things: more money to be spent and better policies," said Peter Yeo, executive director of the Better World Campaign and a vice president of the United Nations Foundation.

Avaaz, a community of almost 6 million people, also makes the point that it has always been the world's citizens that have led the fight against poverty and pushed our leaders to take critical action, and now it is up to us again. I believe that it is an obvious argument that the Web provides the greatest platform for world citizen collaboration.

Our job is to make sure that they don't become complacent by continuing to Make Noise.

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KENYA: Poor Women Beset On All Sides By Violence and other stories on the MDGs

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I have not put up anything for sometime because of work and trying to work out some issues with the Stand Up Take Action folks. So in typical up against the deadline or way late blogger fashion, here is a reblogged posting of what has been happening in the world regarding the Millennium Development Goals.

2010/8/19

DEVELOPMENT-AUSTRALIA: It's Not Just About More, But Better, Aid Neena Bhandari SYDNEY, Aug 19 - Australia's foreign aid budget is likely to double by 2015, but civil society groups say this is far from enough if it is to keep to its "fair share" of commitments to poorer countries. MORE >> AFRICA: Woman Researcher Tackles Aflatoxin Poisoning Isaiah Esipisu NAIROBI , Aug 18 - Despite a bumper harvest of maize just a few months ago, many residents in the eastern part of Kenya are facing hunger and starvation. While granaries in the region may be full, the grain cannot be sold, let alone be eaten. MORE >> Q&A: "We Must Move from a Masculine to a Feminine Economy" Mario Osava interviews Brazilian feminist ROSE MARIE MURARO RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug 17 - It is necessary to move from a "masculine" economy based on competition and a win-lose mentality to a "feminine" win-win economy based on the concept of collaboration, says writer Rose Marie Muraro, one of the pioneers of Brazil's feminist movement. MORE >> SWAZILAND: Finding Ways to Care for HIV Orphans Mantoe Phakathi KANGCAMPHALALA, Swaziland , Aug 17 - In the poor, drought-stricken community of Kangcamphalala, AIDS orphan Nomvula Dladla* is in tears. The 17-year-old has been told that her aunt, the only surviving relative she could live with, passed away a few hours ago of an HIV-related illness. And if she had been living anywhere else in the country, it would have made Dladla destitute. MORE >> Niger Facing Growing Food Crisis Ousseini Issa* NIAMEY, Aug 17 - In April, the United Nations World Food Programme estimated it would need 190 million dollars to respond to a food crisis threatening more than 7 million people in Niger. By July, the WFP had revised the amount needed upwards to $371 million: a month later, the U.N. agency has been forced to scale back aid for lack of funds. MORE >> KENYA: Poor Women Beset On All Sides By Violence Susan Anyangu-Amu NAIROBI, Aug 17 - "My daughter had repeatedly tried to describe to me what her step-father would do to her when I was not home," says Wanza*, a 28-year-old mother resident of Nairobi's Mathare slum. "On this particular night I pretended to be asleep and watched as he left our bed and went for my eight-year-old daughter." MORE >> RWANDA: Improving the Lives of Small-Scale Farmers Aimable Twahirwa KIGALI, Aug 16 - Joelle Nsamira Kajuga, a female agricultural researcher has a ready answer to describe which modified crop will produce a higher yield, which will be resistant to bacteria, and which will ensure food security and generate a higher turnover for poor small-scale farmers in different regions in Rwanda. MORE >> MALAWI: Local Management the Tonic for Water Woes Charles Mpaka BLANTYRE, Aug 16 - Hop over a seep of filthy sludge behind a bathroom screened with ragged sacks, turn past the toilet with battered cardboard walls, crab between mud-brick shanties roofed with rusty metal... There: emerge into a small, neat yard where a dozen women and girls are filling plastic buckets from five water taps sticking out of concrete wall. MORE >> U.N. Targets "Lost Generation" Jennifer Leong UNITED NATIONS, Aug 16 - Even as the U.N. launched the International Year of Youth last week, one of its agencies was warning of a "lost generation" of disillusioned young workers who are unable to find decent jobs. MORE >> SOUTHERN AFRICA: Land Reform Underfinanced and Failing Fidelis Zvomuya RAFFINGORA, Zimbabwe, Aug 14 - Mavis Muchena sits on the veranda of her mud hut, a middle-aged single mother of four with a face worn beyond her years and hands creased from working the soil. She should represent the future of a renewed farming boom in Zimbabwe, but instead she represents its failure. MORE >> GUATEMALA: Multi-Pronged Effort to Boost Food Security Still Falling Short Danilo Valladares GUATEMALA CITY, Aug 13 - "I used to work on the south coast, cutting sugar cane, and I would go all the way to Belize to pick oranges during the harvest. I went through a lot so we could get by," Héctor Pan, a Q'eqchi Indian in Guatemala who has now abandoned farming to become a river rafting guide, told IPS. MORE >> SOUTH SUDAN: Children Too Hungry to Return to Civilian Life Zack Baddorf SOUTH SUDAN, Aug 13 - When Timothy was forced into the southern Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) at age 11, the first thing they did was beat him. Then they took him to a military base where his tasks were to carry other soldiers' bags, wash their clothes, collect firewood for them, and cook their food. MORE >> IPS is partnering with the International Network of Street Papers (INSP) to increase coverage of poverty issues and distribution of poverty related news articles worldwide. The core of this partnership is a three year (2010-2012) EU funded project that focuses on the situation in the Least Developed Countries. This page includes independent IPS news coverage financed by the EU in a project to cover the MDG situation in Least Developed Countries. The contents of this news coverage, including any funded by the European Union, are the sole responsibility of IPS and can under no circumstances be regarded as reflecting the position of the European Union. ADVERTISEMENT

Read more IPS reporting on Development Deadline 2015 here. Copyright © 2010 IPS - Inter Press Service -- All rights reserved.

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President Obama sets Right direction for United States Role in Achieving the MDGs

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Four days ago, David Lane, ONE President and CEO, informed me and more than 40,000 other ONE members that we had been successful in petitioning President Obama to deliver on his powerful pledge to present a plan for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) before the upcoming September's United Nation's Millennium Development Goals Summit in New York City. (Excuse for not doing this sooner is that again work got to hectic)

President Obama followed through on his pledge by releasing a new plan spelling out how the United States will work to achieve the United Nations' Eight Goal Millennium Campaign. 1. End Hunger 2. Universal Education 3. Gender Equity 4. Child Health 5. Maternal Health 6. Combat HIV/AIDS and other diseases 7. Environmental Sustainability 8. Global Partnership by 2015.

The plan, (you can read more about it here) stresses the importance of good governance, promoting economic growth and measurable results.

We should also feel proud to know that our work made a difference, and that the US is taking a real lead on the MDGs. But we can't forget that there's still a lot of hard work to do. We must make sure that the US acts on its new plan to tackle both the MDGs and broader development issues. We must urge other countries to commit to do their part at the September UN Summit. We must continue to let our leaders know that we support these goals and the hope, health, security and opportunity they offer to the world's poorest people.

The actual report is here:

Celebrate, Innovate, and Sustain: Toward 2015 and Beyond

I like the fact that it says "Toward2015 and Beyond" and leading with the word "Celebrate" is intriguing. First thing is to sit down and read it.

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Right food, Right Time, Right Now

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I am on Twitter now with this online persona and keep finding more people and groups working on the Millennium Development Goals with which to connect. The latest was with the World Food Programme (which I connected to through a fellow MAKE NOISE for the Millennium Development Goals BloggersUnite blogger from the Philippines).

The World Food Programme or WFP connected back with me and sent me a direct message.

WFP: Malnourished mothers give birth to malnourished children - we can break the cycle of hunger http://t.co/Mg8MxfR @WFP (pls share this)

The link goes to the video below.

This combines a number of the Millennium Development Goals together. MDG 1. End Hunger is an obvious one but as the cycle of malnutrition makes clear MDG 5. Maternal Health is an important aspect of the problem and if malnutrition impacts developmental health it is also a matter of MDG 4. Child Health. Finally, since most of this is handled by women MDG 3. Gender Equity should also be natural connection.

It can also be extended to include MDG 7. Environmental Sustainability because as the folks from Oxfam pointed out,

Poor women around the world are hardest hit by changes in the environment. When wells run dry, they may have to walk hours farther for water. Women are largely responsible for feeding their families, so when crops fail and food is scarce, they're the last to eat or they go without.

Oxfam is spearheading Sisters on the Planet, bringing women from poor countries together with powerful American women leaders to put pressure on Congress and bring the voices of these communities directly into the debate.

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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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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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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Articles from Diigo Make Noise MDGs 06/27/2010

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• Indigenous Women - UNPFII - United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues

  “The Forum recommends that agencies and bodies of the United Nations and other inter-governmental organizations rethink the concept of development, with the full participation of indigenous peoples in development processes, taking into account the rights of indigenous peoples and the practices of their traditional knowledge.”

  tags: millennium development goals, women, indigenous, unpfii, mdg3, mdg1

• Global Movement for Children

  A participating non-government organization in the MDG summit this September. The GMC was created as a result of the outstanding success of the “Say Yes for Children” campaign which led to the UN Special Session on Children in 2002 resolving to help mobilize citizens of every nation families, communities, civil society, organizations of every kind and children within an active, influential and united movement. This means

  tags: child health, education, mdg2, mdg4, millennium development goals

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

The Tragic Irony of of a Two Punch Combo Against the Poor - Malaria and Poverty

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This blog has done a number of posts in the past on the need to fund Malaria intervention programs around the world. A recent post tried to paint a rosier picture than usual to make the argument that Millennium Development Goal No. 6 was achievable within the next 5 years or at least great strides could be made. I could easily be accused of whistling in the dark because for each positive stride we make the recent economic crisis seems to put us two back.

This May AAAS Science Magazine has a special issue on Tuberculosis and Malaria, two of of focuses for Millennium Development Goal 6. Combat HIV/AIDS and other diseases.

Landscapes of Infection -- Hurtley et al. 328 (5980): 841 -- Science

Stella Hurtley, Caroline Ash, Leslie Roberts Infectious disease remains one of the biggest killers in developing countries. Two of them account for an enormous toll: Eleven million people live with tuberculosis (TB), and almost 250 million cases of malaria—and roughly a million deaths among children—were reported in 2008; a staggering assault on human-kind. The 33 million people who live with HIV/AIDS are frequently co-infected with TB and/or malaria, and co-infection increases the overall risk of mortality and morbidity from all three diseases. Once, we aspired to find "magic bullet" solutions to these plagues using vaccines or drugs, but we have learned that there are no cure-all or simple solutions. These pathogens have complex repertoires of genetic resources that permit them to constantly reinvent themselves and escape the pressures applied by infection-control measures. To curb these elusive targets, we, too, need a large repertoire of tools.

In the same issue, Dr. Barry R. Bloom, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor of Public Health and former dean of the Harvard School of Public Health Editorial wrote an editorial in support for Global Health and against the $50 million reduction in funding for the Global Fund requested by the U.S. government for fiscal year 2011. Sorry, but you need to be a paid AAAS member to see the entire magazine.

Editorial Support for Global Health Barry R. Bloom

As more nations struggle with stressed economies, aid to the developing world becomes increasingly vulnerable to governments' budgetary cuts. The industrialized world is recognizing that coordinating global development assistance is the most efficient way to maximize effectiveness and minimize duplication. Earlier this year, the United States, the largest funder of global health assistance, announced that it seeks to expand multilateral efforts to address the major health problems of developing countries. One of the triumphs of multilateral cooperation has been the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, a program that has saved millions of lives in developing countries. That is why the $50 million reduction in funding for the Global Fund requested by the U.S. government for fiscal year 2011, in the face of increased requests for expanded coverage by those countries, would be a major setback.

The AAAS report also featured one of the good guys in this struggle, the Malaria Consortium which according to their website works in partnership with communities, health systems, government and non-government agencies, academic institutions and local and international organisations to ensure good evidence supports delivery of effective services. Together, we work to secure access for groups most at risk, to prevention, care and treatment of malaria and other communicable diseases.

The problem is that these problems are often so far from us and being always in the same countries that it is easy to think that this is just they way things are. That would be tragic. According to Bloomberg BusinessWeek Heath Executive Health almost Half of Deaths in Kids Under 5 Occur in 5 Countries,

TUESDAY, May 11 (HealthDay News) -- Infectious diseases such as pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria and blood poisoning account for more than two-thirds of the 8.8 million annual deaths in kids under 5 years of age worldwide, a new report shows.

Adding more of a burden on the tragic irony of the situation, impoverished Women in developing countries are forced to to choose between trying to save their children from malaria and spending money for food to avoid risk losing their children to starvation. An average poor family spends 30 percent of household income fighting malaria.

The good folks at Care2 raised this issue an important truth about focusing on only one aspect of the Millennium Development Goals at a time.

Malaria is economically devastating, too. According to research by Freedom from Hunger, in West Africa very poor families, on average, spend one-third of their income dealing with malaria. It's essential that the UN Capital Development Fund educate women about microfinance opportunities so they can develop the financial resources to fight this deadly disease.

To help you imagine what it means to spend a third of your income just to prevent one disease, that is the percent of income that in the United States is viewed as being an appropriate level for affordable housing. In America, you should expect to pay 30% of your income to pay for your shelter, the greatest essential expense most people in this country have. You can help by clicking here to tell the UN Capital Development Fund to increase these opportunities for women. >>

It is widely recognized that women are the key to getting these countries out of poverty. Giving these women a boost with a micro loan helps them to take that extra step and give themselves permission to be creative and resourceful. These systems are already in place. We just need to make sure they reach these families in time.

The UNCDF or United Nations Capital Development Fund offers a unique combination of investment capital, capacity building and technical advisory services to promote microfinance and local development in the Least Developed Countries

Here is my contribution to the conversation:

As is so often the case, the lack of attention to one of the Millennium Development Goals impacts detrimentally another of the Millennium Development Goals. Millennium Development Goal 3 seeks to address the disenfranchisement of women economically and otherwise even though they usually have primary responsibility for family care. By not addressing their basic human needs it weakens even more their capacity to help address the scourges that Millennium Development Goal 6 seeks to address. It cannot be one of the other, it has to be both, it has to be all eight in truth. For today though, for this step, in light of billion dollar bailouts, we need to address these issues through both fronts being proposed here.

I was number 9,181 and they are trying to get to 10,000 and beyond.

• diigo tags:malaria, millennium development goals, change-agent, infection, mdg6, mdgs, global health, microfinance, UN, UNCDF, millennium development goals, development

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

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