World leaders are gathering tomorrow at the UN headquarters in New York to review progress on the Millennium Development Goals, set globally in 2000 and due to be met by 2015.
The eight goals include taking poverty down, slashing hunger and improving access to health care.
Our group here hopes to stir up lots of debate and, without a shred of doubt, such moment will linger in the halls of our memories for some time to come, for good or worse.
A UN report shows countries have made some progress so far. Some are on track for meeting at least a few targets, others lack the political will.
But the situation is still too uncertain.
Some realities are clouded by the difficulty of measuring. Some countries do not collect statistics and much information goes unregistered.
Also, do they focus too much on meeting the set targets without thinking through the means? For instance, the goal 2 of universal primary school education is about bums on seats rather than strengthening institutions in a way that they can provide schooling in a sustainable way, said Andrew Natsios, former head of US development agency USAID, in a paper published in July.
The MDGs do not capture the bigger picture of progress – as previously discussed on the platform –, but that was the best our leaders and institutions came up with.
Good luck Luan! I will be all eyes and ears for your posts
Good luck, Luan, greetings from Nairobi!
I hope to read from you about whether any new ideas of effective MDG measurement are going to be brought to the table!
Have fun Luan!
Thank you Luan for writing. Andrea and me will catch up as soon as possible
Guys, thank you so much. We are making the best out of it. It’s been tough, eventful days and only now we’ve really had time to write about. Sorry for our delay. But one thing we must make clear for all of you is that we are not at the UN Headquarters with mainstream media covering at first hand the summit. We’re basically covering surrounding important events with several policy makers and specialists. But I will try all I can. Thanks once more for your support.
Bring it on, folks!