UN Millennium Campaign: Latest News

MDGs: United Struggle Towards National Realisation

admin — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 13:53:17 -0500

Nigeria, 19 Jan 2012 - As the 2015 deadline year for realisation of the eight global Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) draws nearer, the House of Representatives Committee on the MDGs, the United Nations Millennium Campaign (UNMC) and the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) organised a two-day retreat recently in Abuja for members of the House Committee. The main objective of the House of Representatives Committee on MDGs retreat in Abuja was to expose members to the principles and national frameworks on the MDGs as well as the mandate of the Committee in their achievement. The retreat was formally declared open by the Chair of the Committee, Hon. Alhassan Ado Doguwa, and had goodwill message from the United Nations System.

There were three technical sessions: Understanding the MDGs, the MDGs and Macroeconomic Issues, and Parliaments and the MDGs. There were presentations on institutional and policy frameworks from the Office of the Senior Special Assistant to the President on MDGs and the roles of the Parliaments in advancing the MDGs by the UN Millennium Campaign.

For the full article please continue reading here.

Original Source: This Day Live.

Indians Use Cell Phones to Plug Holes in Governance

admin — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 10:56:39 -0400

This article from the Washington Post describes an exciting new program being conducted in two Indian districts in which citizens can connect directly with government officials to report problems via cell phones.

LONDHIYA, INDIA — Almost everyone in this village in central India has a complaint. Electricity comes only three hours a day. The road has potholes. Widows’ pensions arrive late. The school lunch program often runs low on food.

Villagers say they send letters, call a government complaint line and wait outside officials’ offices for help, but never get a response. “All our complaints go into a blind well of the government,” said Mukesh Chandravanshi, 30, a farmer.

Now a simple cellphone text-messaging program is providing a more direct line of communication between villagers and the government. Developed by activists, local officials and an information technology company, the system ensures that complaints are immediately acknowledged and that residents regularly receive updates on how and when their problems will be resolved.

Launched in two districts in two states, the system decreases the chances that a problem will be ignored by holding officials accountable, according to its developers. Such technology does not guarantee a solution, but it can transform the relationship between citizens and the government in a bloated bureaucracy beset with corruption and apathy, analysts say.

“Everybody’s pocket in the village has a mobile phone nowadays. If we can turn this into a direct pipeline to the government, we will have the power to complain and be heard,” Shafique Khan, a field coordinator for the program, called Samadhan, or resolution, said as he demonstrated how to use it to villagers sitting under a tamarind tree.

Through Samadhan, people can go to a Web site to see where most problems and delays occur and assess the performance of officials in those areas. The data can be used to identify systemic bottlenecks in the government’s delivery of services.

This month, the program — which was supported by the U.N. Millennium Development Goals campaign — has received 530 complaints through text messages, such as “my water handpump is not working,” “health worker is absent” and “the village bridge has collapsed in the rain.”

Citizens groups and IT companies are increasingly using crowdsourcing technology to help make the government more efficient, empower people and even mobilize protesters. The ubiquitous cellphone, with about 750 million users in India, and open-source Internet platforms are being deployed to ensure that trash is picked up on time, to track bribes and to help people learn English, find jobs and report incidents of sexual harassment on the streets.

“Access to technology is changing our democratic idiom, and the mobile phone is a metaphor for this change,” said Shiv Visvanathan, a social anthropologist with the Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology in Gandhinagar. “People are demanding accountability from the government. And speed of service delivery is key.”

Not everyone in Londhiya, in Madhya Pradesh state, can take advantage of the complaint service. As some villagers pulled out their phones and started typing at the demonstration meeting, a few older men and veiled women who said they were illiterate watched silently from a distance.

But not all crowdsourcing applications are based on text messaging. In the southern city of Hyderabad, for example, the local government uses Global Positioning System technology and cellphone cameras to manage the mounting problem of uncollected garbage. Sanitation supervisors take photos of overflowing trash cans, and the images are uploaded in real time. Officials say this helps hold sanitation workers accountable.

In New Delhi, a new Web site urges women to report harassment and help map neighborhoods they consider unsafe. A mobile app called Fight Back, which will be launched in November for $2 a month, is tied to the site and enables a woman to send alerts to her friends from her smartphone if she is harassed. The alerts also go to her Facebook page and identify her location on a map.

“The ‘unsafe map’ of Delhi that we are creating with women who report harassment on our site will push the government to turn their attention to these places and warn women and tourists,” said Hindol Sengupta, co-founder of Whypoll, a networking platform for improving governance that has listed such areas with input from more than 100,000 women.

Sengupta recently demonstrated the program to several women at a busy upmarket mall in the capital.

“Do you go to the police if you get harassed?” he asked women. All of them said no.

“I feel helpless if a man whistles, passes a lewd comment or touches me in a bus or a public place. I just ignore and keep quiet because I do not want to provoke them. That’s what we are taught by our families,” said Reena Sharma, a 31-year-old cosmetics saleswoman.

Initially available only on smartphones, the service will eventually extend to low-cost cellphones as well, said Sandeep Sidhu, global delivery manager of CanvasM, the technology interface company that created Fight Back.

Some of these initiatives, including a mobile app launched by CanvasM, are helping India’s 400 million blue-collar migrant workers tap into new opportunities.

“We are helping poorer Indians at the bottom of the pyramid take advantage of the job opportunities arising out of the economic boom that is underway in India,” said Jagdish Mitra, chief executive at CanvasM.

For the original article please follow this link.

Baba Maal promoting MDG Goals 4 and 5 at an event organized by the UN Country Office to support the MDG Campaign

Miki — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 15:09:00 -0400

Senegalese Entertainer Baba Maal promoting MDG Goals 4 and 5 at an event organized by the UN Country Office to support the MDG Campaign. The event was jointly organized with the National Civil Society Consortium.(CONGAD)

Senegal launches Parliamentary MDG Committee to monitor MDG Performance

Miki — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 15:07:00 -0400

Senegal launches Parliamentary MDG Committee to monitor MDG Performance. This was a join event by the UN Millennium Campaign and the UN Country Team, lead by the RC.

The Millennium Campaign applauds the commitment of the Parliament of Cantabria (Spain) with the MDGs

Miki — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 10:12:52 -0400

Rome March 30, 2011 – Miguel Ángel Palacio, President of the Parliament of Cantabria (Spain) met this morning in Rome with Marina Ponti, UN Millennium Campaign’s Deputy Director for Europe in recognition to the leading role that this regional parliament has had in the promotion of the MDGs in the last years.

Since 2009, and in collaboration with the University of Cantabria and the regional newspaper “El Montañes”, the Parliament of Cantabria has coordinated the initiative Students of the Millennium, which has proved to be an excellent tool to increase support and knowledge on the MDGs. According to a recent survey, 80% of the university students of this region know about the 8 Goals, while Spanish national average reaches only 23%. Other regional parliaments in Spain, such as Castilla y León, La Rioja, Extremadura and País Vasco, have also successfully replicated this initiative.

“We are in the run up to 2015 and significant progress has been made in some of the MDGs such as universal primary education or access to drinking water. However, much remains to be done in areas such as maternal and child health. As Ban Ki-moon, UN Secretary General, said the MDGs will not be achieved unless we mobilize citizen’s support. In this context, the commitment of regional parliaments, such as the Parliament of Cantabria, is crucial for the future of MDGs”, said during this meeting Marina Ponti, Deputy Director for Europe of the Nations Millennium Campaign United.

The UN Millennium Campaign has been actively working with regional parliaments to promote the MDGs amongst their citizenry. With this purpose, the Campaign signed an agreement with CALRE, a European platform for regional parliaments, in 2009, and with COPREPA in early 2010 to work together on awareness raising initiatives and activities to promote the MDGs, preferably addressed at children and youth.

African footballers score as U.N. goodwill ambassadors

chiara — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 11:56:42 -0400

DAKAR (AlertNet) – African solutions to African problems is the mantra of governments across this continent. But what about the goodwill ambassadors that fly around speaking about the issues that touch Africa most deeply, should they be African too?

Just days before an Africa Cup of Nations qualifier between Cameroon and Senegal in Dakar, the United Nations named Senegal’s captain, Mamadou Niang, a champion of the U.N. Millennium Campaign.

Niang joins Cameroon’s Benoit Assou-Ekotto who plays for English team Tottenham Hotspur as a campaigner for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of targets world leaders agreed to to significantly reduce poverty, illiteracy and disease by 2015.

Niang’s appointment seems to be part of a slowly shifting trend to promote homegrown stars — Chelsea’s Didier Drogba (an Ivorian) and Inter Milan striker Samuel Eto’o (another Cameroonian) are also U.N. goodwill ambassadors — in a field usually dominated by the likes of Angelina Jolie, Mia Farrow, Christine Aguilera and other Western celebrities.

“We think that sports and athletes are vectors through which we can transmit vital messages to the society and we believe footballers in particular could sensitise people on issues like poverty alleviation and the MDGs,” Boubou Dramane Camara, Country Director of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Senegal, told me.

Whether African or not, the idea of deploying actors, singers and sportsmen to Africa to evangelise on issues related to poverty and development has long had its critics who doubt if they achieve anything other than heaping pity on the continent.

“Because of their thin political background and agendas, the majority of today’s celebrity activists do not pay much attention to the content of what they do. Most of them have busy schedules so the kinds of briefing they receive are limited by their publicists who control their time,” analyst Abdul Mohammed blogged for the Social Science Research Council think-tank.

The end result of the celebrity do-gooders phenomenon is to reduce Africa to spectacle and Africans to spectators in the destiny of their own continent. It delegitimizes the African state — which must be the mechanism for development and emancipation —- and discourages those who try to practice activism in the old-fashioned way, Mohammed argued.

Marina Hyde, a columnist for the British newspaper the Guardian asked why entertainers think they could save the world in her book: How Entertainers Took Over the World And Why We Need an Exit Strategy.

“The skillset requirements of this rapidly proliferating modern role remain shadowy, but it seems to have been created as a way to say: ‘Sorry about the bombing/famine/pestilence – we’ve sent you a celebrity as a goodwill gesture,’ Hyde writes,

Would this apply to African football stars who take up ambassadorial roles in the continent of their birth?

Many of them grew up in dirt-poor families and were only able to lift themselves out of poverty through sports. Their rags-to-riches stories make them to key to reaching young people across the continent who yearn to follow in their footsteps, according to advocates of their selection as U.N. advocates.

“They are best placed to engage young people but also to do advocacy on behalf of youngsters towards decision makers, politicians and others who are in a position to make decisions that can help eradicate poverty because they can talk in a very simple way and from experience about issues of social concern,” said Nelson Muffuh, U.N. Millennium Campaign coordinator for West Africa.

So it would seem to make more sense to have Cameroon’s captain Eto’o, a U.N. Children’s Fund Goodwill Ambassador who grew up in the poverty stricken neighbourhood of New Bell in Douala, speaking to Africans and their leaders on the importance of poverty alleviation and children’s rights than, say, England star David Beckham, another UNICEF goodwill ambassador.

“It is time Africans spoke for themselves about their issues and prove that they know what needs to be done and how to do it and these footballers are living up to that by taking these advocacy roles,” said an adviser of an African international footballer, who did not want to be named.

PHOTO CREDITS: Olympique Marseille’s Mamadou Niang celebrates after scoring his third goal against Nancy during their French Ligue 1 soccer match at the Velodrome stadium in Marseille, Febuary 21, 2010. REUTERS/Philippe Laurenson

World Day for Water, 22 March

chiara — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 11:56:22 -0400

As cities around the world struggle to meet the basic needs of their booming populations, many are falling behind when it comes to water, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement marking World Day for Water.

“Urbanization brings opportunities for more efficient water management and improved access to drinking water and sanitation,” Ban said. “At the same time, problems are often magnified in cities,” he added. “The Millennium Development Goal target for water and sanitation is among those on which many countries lag the most.”

MDG7 includes a call to reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015. Today, nearly half of the world – 2.5 billion people – lack access to proper sanitation, and 1.2 billion to adequate water. For more: www.un.org/millenniumgoals.

Ban called on policymakers “to recognize the urban water crisis for what it is – a crisis of governance, weak policies and poor management, rather than one of scarcity.” He highlighted the “alarming decline” in investments that provide poor communities with clean water and sanitation, which has increased those ill-served by 20 percent in the past decade.

Water shortages often get attention, but it is the quality and accessibility of water that make the difference between life and death for human beings – particularly children under age five – and for the ecosystems on which our well-being depends. Thousands of children are sickened or killed by water-borne illnesses every day, making water a focal point for UNICEF‘s efforts.

The global observance of World Water Day 2011 highlights options for tackling urban water and sanitation challenges across Africa. For other events in the United States and around the world, please click here or find out more at World Water Monitoring Day.

Additional FAQs and information are at UN-Water, UN-HABITAT, FAO Water. Reports can be found at:
UNESCO’s Water for Cities
UNEP’s Water Quality Outlook
WHO’s Global Annual Assessment of Sanitation and Drinking Water

About the UN Office in Washington

As the United Nations office in Washington, D.C, the United Nations Information Center serves as the focal point for UN news and information to advance understanding of the UN and its work, and to serve as a resource for United States government officials, NGOs, civil-society organizations and the American people.

The ‘AIDS and MDGs’ approach

chiara — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 14:25:13 -0400

“Over the past three decades, the HIV/AIDS epidemic has reminded us of the fundamental linkages between health and development more broadly. It has shown us that, to tackle this deadly virus and its impact, it takes both the best that science and medicine can offer and attention to the basic conditions which shape vulnerability – be they poverty, gender inequalities, or discrimination against marginalized groups.”
Helen Clark,
UNDP Administrator

From the very early days of the global AIDS epidemic, many have recognized that effective responses must go beyond only providing health information, medical services, drugs and commodities. Early AIDS strategies in the United Nations family reflected these insights, including the World Health Organization’s (WHO) emphasis on ‘AIDS and human rights’ and the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) focus on ‘AIDS and development’. By the mid-1990s, the relationship between the AIDS epidemic and a broad range of social and economic factors was institutionally reflected in the creation of UNAIDS – a multi-agency, joint UN programme to address the multi-dimensional drivers of the AIDS epidemic.

There have been many challenges to these multi-sectoral approaches. The characterization of AIDS as a global ‘emergency’ encouraged short-term responses with short-term impact. From the success of anti-retroviral therapy through ever-lengthening timelines for development of an effective vaccine, some have hoped that technology would provide a ‘magic bullet’ that would reduce or eliminate the need to address complex social phenomena. The need to ensure that policy is based on evidence has sometimes undermined commitment to approaches that are more difficult to measure.

More recently, several factors have worked together to challenge false dichotomies between ‘medical’ versus ‘multi-sectoral’ strategies or ‘vertical’ versus ‘horizontal’ responses to AIDS. The global HIV epidemic will be with us well beyond this generation, so we simultaneously need both short-term impact and long-term thinking. The global economic crisis of 2009 has once again increased attention to cost-effectiveness but with a recognition that the best strategies contribute not just to HIV results but to other health and development outcomes as well. There is an increasing commitment to ensuring that investments must strengthen health, social protection and other relevant systems while also delivering services and commodities.

These changes in the AIDS response landscape have created an opportunity to explore, strengthen and leverage the links between AIDS and other health and development issues. The term ‘AIDS and MDGs’ is gaining currency as an approach that leverages these links – effectively addressing both short- and long-term challenges and impacts of the HIV epidemic while contributing to the achievement of the wider MDG agenda.

This paper outlines three important pillars of an AIDS and MDGs approach:
1. Understanding how AIDS and the other MDGs impact on one another;
2. Documenting and exchanging lessons learned across AIDS and other MDGs; and
3. Creating cross-MDG synergy and increasing cost-effectiveness through intervention strategies that simultaneously address AIDS together with other MDGs.

The paper proposes broader policy level implications to move the AIDS and MDGs approach forward. These recommendations include:

1. Map the HIV epidemic in relation to the broader MDG and development context. Ensure that the ‘know your epidemic/know your response’ framework examines not just epidemiology but also structural factors that block progress on multiple MDGs and emphasize a picture of the HIV epidemic that is linked to an understanding of the current status of other MDGs.

2. Explore a range of cross-MDG strategies and scale up promising intervention models. Applying an HIV lens to a variety of programmes, such as social protection or environmental impact assessments, could maximize opportunities for synergistic action across multiple MDGs, including HIV.

3. Ensure that countries’ policy environments support and sustain the impact of cross-MDG programmes. In order to have greater impact and coverage, individual intervention programmes should be supported by broader country-level policies that carry the potential for far more sustained and systemic change (e.g., on gender equality) than can be achieved through individual programmes acting in isolation.

4. Build AIDS and MDG partnerships by reaching out across sectors to engage a broader range of health and development actors. Promote interdisciplinary and multi-sectoral action to successfully design and implement cross-MDG strategies and transfer lessons across fields.

5. Generate best practice models by evaluating AIDS and MDG strategies against realistic timeframes. Support further research in order to guide programme and policy development across a range of settings. Because effecting meaningful and measureable shifts in areas such as economic well being, education, or gender equality will require longer timeframes than those afforded by more conventional technical or biomedical interventions, it will be important to link the application of cross-sectoral approaches to robust budget lines that will support substantial, long-term action and project cycles.

Because the MDGs explicitly locate HIV within a broader international commitment to human development targets, an AIDS and MDGs approach provides a critical platform to galvanize resources, political will, and momentum behind a broader, systematic and structural approach to HIV, health and development. Moreover, because the Millennium Declaration reaffirms commitments to human rights, an AIDS and MDGs approach can catalyze greater attention to such rights and their role in achieving multiple MDGs and in translating human rights commitments into meaningful change.

What's Being Done to Advance Gender Equality

chiara — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 10:44:10 -0500

Wednesday, 8 March, marks the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day. It is a time to not only celebrate the role of the women worldwide, but it is also an opportunity to remind the world of the struggles that women have faced over the years in the fight for equal rights, dignity and respect.

Over the years, the United Nations has paid particular attention to women’s issues, particularly to women’s empowerment as a tool for global development. In fact, according to research and studies, improvements in women’s education and health have led to decreases in child and maternal mortality, reduction in the spread of disease, progress in educational attainments, and an increase in household incomes. The condition of the women is important and vital for global improvement and better social and economic growth.

The United Nations has embraced gender equality as one of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The target of MDG 3: Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women is to eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education by 2005 and in all levels of education by 2015. In addition, MDG 3 aims to increase both the share of women in wage employment in the non-agricultural sector and the proportion of seats held by women in national parliament.

Many countries, including low income and lower middle income countries such as
Bhutan, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Guinea, India, Senegal and Yemen, have made impressive strides on the path towards parity in primary education. Fewer countries, however, have managed to increase girls’ participation at both the primary and secondary level at the same pace, but success stories do exist. Bangladesh’s achievement of gender parity in both primary and secondary education even before 2005, despite the country’s poverty and vulnerability to natural disasters, has been acknowledged world-wide. Starting from a very low gender parity index in primary education (0.35) in 1980s, the country closed the gender gap in education within a decade.

However, although there has been progress made on gender equality, challenges remain. Since the 1985 Nairobi Women’s Conference, organizations have formed expectations and demands for incorporating a women’s rights perspective in all national and regional policies and actions. These were reaffirmed at the Beijing Conference 10 years later, yet there has been little to show for it. In many countries, the unequal status of women is integrated into government policy, giving women’s needs very little priority. Today, women are disproportionately affected by poverty with approximately 70% of the two billion poor people around the world are women; two thirds of illiterate adults are women; and, more than 60 million girls around the world are forced into premature marriage before they turn 18.

Achieving MDG 3 is crucial to the success of all the other MDGs – s
olid evidence has shown that progress in gender equality in one Goal often contributes simultaneously toward progress on a number of other development goals. Because of this, last July, to help eradicate gender inequality and advance the condition of women everywhere, the United Nations established UN Women, the United Nation’s entity for gender equality and the empowerment of women. Michelle Bachelet, former president of Chile and the first woman leader of that country, was appointed the Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of the organization. Among other things, Bachelet has consistently fought for social justice and gender equality, and firmly believes that women can make important contributions to the world.

Additionally, in September 2010, at the UN MDG Review Summit, United Nation’s Secretary General Ban Ki-moon reiterated the importance of women by creating a campaign aimed at the advancement of women. The Global Strategy for Women and Children’s Health – Every Woman, Every Child – represents a global commitment supported by United Nations, multilateral organizations, academic, and professionals to address key issues such as maternal and child health and mortality leading to the improvement of millions of lives.

Action, although sometimes slow, is being taken around the world in countries large and small, as well as in local, national and international settings, to help ease the existing gender gaps. So, in celebration of the International Women’s Day everyday, get involved in programs such as the Girl Up Campaign that empower people like you to become involved in making a difference. Check it out today and make your voice heard; help make gender equality become a lived reality.

5 Months After MDG Summit, Citizen Tracking Mechanism is Launched in Kenya

chiara — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 15:32:05 -0500

Ten years after their establishment, the eight United Nations Millennium Development Goals are set to gain a new local and tangible edge with the launch of an online citizen tracking program in Kenya that went live Feb. 10.

The U.N. Millennium Campaign, in collaboration with 20 local and national Kenyan non-governmental organizations, is sponsoring the novel initiative. The pilot project debuts five months after September’s U.N. summit on the MDGs in New York, where civil society voiced concerns that funding pledges made there by world leaders might not be adequately tracked and that civil society could have a hand in reporting about actual successes and failures of aid projects in the field.

The project will benefit millions of Kenyans, who will be directed to anonymously contact government officials via text messaging when they find any kind of service that is lacking or missing from their communities. The exact nature and deriving location of all complaints, as well as the local government officials and offices responsible for responding to them, will be posted live on Huduma.info, a name derived from the Swahili word for “service.”

“The campaign has been thinking very hard about how do you get a real conversation going between citizens and governments about realizations on the MDGs, for the past two years, how do you get into the specifics of what is and what is not working?” explained Corinne Woods, director of the U.N. Millennium Campaign, an inter-agency initiative hosted by the U.N. Development Program.

The answer, it seems, is to enable and empower citizens to voice their concerns quickly, efficiently and cheaply, while providing them with a public platform to ensure that their queries are not getting buried in a suggestion box. It is a solution that ultimately requires participation from all sectors of society, including government and civil society organizations at local, national and international levels, which will serve different roles in the outreach, follow-up and tracking process.

Why Kenya?

The U.N. Millennium Campaign’s Africa office decided to launch the initiative in Kenya in part because of the country’s recently established constitution and strong civil society network, according to Nargos Hardos, a member of the Africa office and implementer of the project.

“A lot of people are not sure what their rights are and what they are entitled to, like health care and education, or of their rights as a taxpayer,” said Hardos. “This is also a tool for the government to be able to show exactly what the citizens want and how to reconnect with them.”

For the pilot launch, the U.N. Millennium Campaign and its partner organizations are working to distribute phone numbers to citizens in four Kenyan districts, including Kibera, the country’s largest slum. One target western province alone has a population of 4 million, according to Hardos. The population in Kibera and Langata, both located in Nairobi, combine for a total of about 200,000.

After Kenya, the U.N. Millennium Campaign hopes to roll out similar projects in Uganda, Nigeria, India and the Philippines within the next year.

Simple messaging is key

Under the initiative, non-governmental groups, largely local, grass-roots organizations, will work to mobilize people to send a text message to the provided number when, for instance, a midwife is regularly not present at a health clinic. There are approximately 22 million mobile phone users in Kenya, said Hardos, with network connection virtually anywhere.

Basil Ibrahim, also of the U.N. Millennium Campaign’s Africa office, said concise, simple messaging will be key in getting the word out.

“We’re not talking about MDG 1 or 2 or the new constitution, but it is about the pleasure of rinsing in clean water and decent health care,” Ibrahim explained. “Our whole communications strategy will be built around the emotion of deprivation, which is very real to people.”

The goal is for the project to take on a life of its own, spanning well past 2015 – the target year for the MDG goals – and operating independently, with people automatically thinking of texting the provided number or logging in to Huduma.info when there is a problem to report. That may not lead to clearer data on any MDG tracking – specifically information on infant, child and maternal mortality, which is notoriously difficult to document – but it will help identify areas that need increased attention, Woods said.

“What this does is help governments and the U.N. at the country level understand what the bottlenecks are,” Woods said. “If you see here a center is closed and it should be open, clearly something is going on. Maybe the people there are not being paid, or the doctors opened a private practice.”

The information will feed into a larger analysis of what is and what isn’t working at a local level, Woods said, while also identifying “what we can do about this.”

NGOs will ultimately be responsible holding government officials accountable once requests for help appear in a little bubble form on Huduma’s user-friendly map, a concept developed by the Kenya-based Social Development Network, or SODNET. As the program expands and begins to span countries and regions, the capacity for participation for national and international NGOs will expand as well.

The future of MDG progress tracking

The concept of citizen tracking on a local scale is not new, according to Woods. But the pilot program in Kenya is the known first U.N.-sponsored MDG-specific initiative that eliminates the back-and-forth process of conducting surveys, writing reports, and submitting the reports for publication, consideration and feedback.

On a global level, U.N. efforts to monitor MDG progress as well as the resources pledged to achieve the goals are done through the secretary-general’s MDG Gap Task Force and the new Commission on Information and Accountability for Women’s and Children’s Health. The high-level commission was established in December 2010 to develop an accountability framework that will help countries monitor spending of resources committed for maternal and child health during the MDG summit in New York. It will issue its first report in May 2011.

>> UN Creates Commission to Ensure Accountability in Women and Child’s Health Aid Flow
>> MDG Summit Culminates With USD40B Global Health Roadmap

At this juncture, even as the pilot project in Kenya is just taking off, the U.N. Millennium Campaign is considering a new program to enhance involvement with civil society in tracking all MDG monetary and policy commitments.

“We’re in the very early stages of that planning, and there is a lot of thinking,” said Woods. “We’re having that discussion now with people from different civil society organizations and would be very happy to hear from them and hear what their thinking is.”

Civil society organizations interested in becoming involved in either effort should contact their U.N. Millennium Campaign officer in the region or country where they are working.

By Amy Lieberman

Amy is a Devex development correspondent focusing on the United Nations and New York City's aid community. She covered the 2010 Millennium Development Goals summit for Devex and has written about global health, aid worker security and a variety of other topics. Previously, Amy reported from India, Bangladesh and Mexico. Her work has appeared in Women's eNews, IRIN, Policy Innovations, Europa Newswire and The New York Observer, among other publications.

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End Poverty - Women Make It Happen!

chiara — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 10:19:17 -0500

With less than five years to the 2015 deadline set to achieve the Millennium Develpoment Goals, progress on the Goals has been uneven. We have seen great strides made in some areas, while in others, there is still much work to be done.

To ensure the world realises its potential to make poverty history, significant progress must be made to ensure that the needs of women are given greater priority. Women disproportionately suffer from hunger, disease, environmental degradation and impoverishment. As a result, poverty remains stubbornly “feminised”, with women accounting for a vast percentage of the world’s absolute poor.

On the occasion of International Women’s Day, it is important to highlight the interconnectedness of women’s issues to all of the Millennium Development Goals.

In preparation for International Women's Day on March 8th, - a global day celebrating the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future, the UN Millennium Campaign is launching a competition to find women around the world who have made the Millennium Goals real in their lives and by doing so, have inspired positive change in their towns, cities and local communities.

We are looking to meet the unsung MDG Champions, women who may not have been widely recognized but whose daily lives and actions have inspired progress in any of the areas covered by the MDGs

If you know a woman whose story should be shared, we would like to make it happen.

Send us a photo of this woman, and tell us in 500 words or less why or how she is making a difference.

Please send the picture (maximum 500KB file size) to info@endpoverty2015.org.
The subject of the email should be: MDG Women.

Please include a caption with your name and country, and the name and country of the person portrayed. Please take into consideration that only 1 image per person will be considered for the competition.

The photos will be published on the United Nations Millennium Campaign Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/mcampaign) and you will be able to tag yourself. They will also be featured on our website at www.endpoverty2015.org.

Remember to become a member on our Facebook page which will enable you to comment, tag and like the photos uploaded on the album "End Poverty - Women Make It Happen!".

We’ll select five winners with the most inspirational and motivational story. Winners will also be featured on our global website as well as our Facebook page.

We hope to use the winning photos to represent the MDGs on our website and in various other promotional materials. By entering the competition, you’re agreeing that you’re happy for us to use your photos. We will of course always credit them to you.

We’re really excited to hear your stories and see your photos.

Deadline for entering is 8 March 2011.

Matrix of commitments and initiatives: an explanatory note

chiara — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 12:55:03 -0500

The High Level Plenary Meeting of the United Nations on the Millennium Development Goals (MDG Summit) concluded with the adoption of an Outcome Document representing a global action plan to achieve the eight anti‐poverty goals by their 2015 target. Announcement of major new commitments and initiatives to accelerate MDG progress were made in support of the global action plan by Governments, international organizations and partners as well as by business representatives.

This matrix constitutes a compilation of initiatives and commitments relating to the 2010 High‐level Meeting which were made during the six General Assembly Plenary Sessions, six high‐level roundtables and over 80 partnership events, as well as the UN Global Compact Private Sector Forum. The commitments were drawn from the records provided by the organizers.

The matrix though comprehensive is not exhaustive. In his report “Keeping the Promise” the Secretary‐General highlighted that keeping our past promises, including the Gleneagles commitments, in spite of the more difficult international environment will bring us a long way in achieving the MDGs. This matrix therefore includes both old and new commitments.

While financial support by donors is necessary and crucial to meet the deadline for the achievement of the MDGs by 2015, developing countries have primary responsibility for their own development. Many have to put the MDGs at the heart of the national agenda. This matrix therefore also includes several of the important commitments made by developing countries to prepare MDG Strategies and create the necessary enabling environment to accelerate MDG progress.

More detailed information on the different commitments made and initiatives launched can be found on the MDG Summit website where GA statements, Reports from the high‐level roundtables, a report on the Partnership Events and the UN Global Compact Private Sector Forum are made available.

Download Matrix here

Source: http://www.un.org/

Check other Summit related documents here

MDG Progress Index: Gauging Country-Level Achievements

chiara — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 11:00:43 -0500

The deadline for the highly scrutinized 2015 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is just four years away. Ten years since the UN’s adoption of the goals and twenty years since the recording of most baseline data, we ask: how well is each country progressing towards these highly ambitious targets? Despite an extraordinary public campaign to mobilize support for the MDGs, there has been surprisingly little effort to track, record, and disseminate information regarding progress toward the goals at the country level.

In a recent CGD working paper Who Are the MDG Trailblazers? A New MDG Progress Index, CGD research fellow Ben Leo and Julia Barmeier assess individual country performance against eight core MDG targets (extreme poverty, hunger, education, gender, child mortality, maternal mortality, HIV/AIDS, and water). For each target, the Index compares a country’s actual performance over time with the rate of improvement needed to reach the target by 2015.

To better present the results of the paper, this interactive MDG web tool illustrates each individual country’s progress towards the highly ambitious MDG targets. The tool includes MDG Progress Scorecards for each country, which include performance trajectories for each core target. In addition, we have provided supplementary map overlays for those MDGs with absolute performance targets (education and gender), which are widely considered as biased and unfair to countries starting off a low-base. These alternative measures illustrate each country’s average annual progress – arguably a much more realistic measure of real-world improvements. Finally, we’ve included the complete underlying dataset to provide our users with even greater workability.

As illustrated in the tool, the authors find evidence of dramatic achievements by many poor countries, such as Honduras, Vietnam, Laos, Ethiopia, Uganda, Burkina Faso, Nepal, Cambodia, and Ghana. These countries’ performances suggest that they may achieve most of the highly ambitious MDGs. Moreover, Africa accounts for many star performers. Interestingly, poor countries perform nearly on par with middle-income countries. And not surprisingly, the list of laggards largely consists of countries devastated by conflict, such as Afghanistan, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Guinea-Bissau. Most countries fall somewhere in-between, demonstrating solid progress on some indicators and little on others.

The authors are committed to creating the most user-friendly web-app as possible. They welcome questions, comments and suggestions on the methodology, findings, and data display. Email Ross Thuotte

Source: Center for Global Development

UNMC Partners Release MDG Report

Miki — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 10:29:00 -0500

When all eyes were on the MDG Summit in September 2010, the UN Millennium Campaign’s partner organizations, the United Nations Foundation and Devex, had already teamed up to launch a global dialogue on “Making the Millennium Development Goals Happen.” The discussion, which focused individually on each of the eight MDGs over a six month period, was intended to serve as a resource for development professionals around the world to discuss, debate, and celebrate progress to date on the MDGs. It also served as a way for professionals to facilitate recommendations for the achievement of the Goals over the next five years.

To celebrate the success of the endeavor and to recap the dialogue, the two organizations released a report highlighting the conversation in which aid workers and development professionals from around the world shared their successes and challenges in achieving the MDGs. Read the report.

ODI releases seven new case studies showcasing concrete MDG progress in Africa and Asia

chiara — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 10:38:01 -0500

Britain’s leading think tank on international development, the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) is launching new case studies of outstanding progress in development from seven countries in Africa and Asia.

The case studies from Cambodia, Eritrea, India, Indonesia, Laos, Mauritius, and Namibia, form part of the research project ‘Development Progress Stories’. The project seeks to describe and understand examples of development progress to inform the global debate on international engagement and development financing.

The case studies look at:

Sustained progress in economic conditions in Mauritius: the island has successfully translated economic growth into concrete poverty reduction and improvements in human development.
Progress in providing employment for the poor in India: the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is the largest rights-based employment guarantee programme in the world, reaching over 40 million households. Through MGNREGA the government has successfully integrated a rights-based poverty reduction programme into the Indian Constitution.
Progress in healthcare in Eritrea: Despite profound poverty, it is one of the few countries expected to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in the health sector. Dramatic reductions in infant and child mortality rates, and the halving of HIV prevalence in a very short period.
The rebuilding of basic education in Cambodia: substantial progress in re-establishing an inclusive primary and secondary education system after years of instability and civil war, with almost all children now entering school.
Indonesia’s progress on governance:transformation from a militarised state into a story of ‘big-bang decentralisation’ devolving decision-making authority to local levels.
Progress in sanitation in Laos: Rapid increase in access to improved sanitation in rural areas, from an extremely low base (an estimated 10% in 1995 to 38% in 2008). Lao PDR’s progress is striking when compared to other least-developed countries (LDCs) with similar low coverage baselines.
Sustainable natural resource management in Namibia: putting wildlife conservation in local hands and showing the potential to generate real wealth and gains for disadvantaged groups.

The Development Progress Stories project

Aquino boosts ‘breakthrough’ plan for MDG localization in Region 1

chiara — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 16:56:58 -0500

PRESIDENT Aquino led national and local officials last week in formally launching a partnership-project on Millennium Development Goals (MDG) localization in the Ilocos Region.

Aquino witnessed the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding between and among the project partners led by Alaminos City Mayor Hernani A. Braganza representing the League of Cities of the Philippines, Region 1 offices of the Regional Development Council through National Economic and Development Authority and Departments of the Interior and Local Government, of Education, of Environment and Natural Resources, of Health and Social Welfare and Development and the nongovernment organization La Liga Policy Institute (La Liga) during simple rites in Bani, Pangasinan, hosted by Mayor Marcelo Navarro Jr.

Dubbed “Localizing the MDGs: Making it Work Where it Matters–Accelerating MDG Localization in the Eight Cities of Region 1” the project is expected to boost the implementation of relevant development programs to achieve important MDG targets by 2015 in the Ilocos Region, starting with eight key cities covered by the project namely Laoag City, Ilocos Norte; Candon City and Vigan City, Ilocos Sur; San Fernando City, La Union; Urdaneta City, Dagupan City, San Carlos City and Alaminos City, in Pangasinan.

Aquino lauded the initiative as “a big boost to government’s antipoverty campaign, which is in line with his administration’s MDG breakthrough plan.

The project aims to address five important MDG targets that are at risk of not being achieved. They are MDG 1 (reducing poverty and hunger); MDG 2 (attaining universal primary education); MDG 4 (reducing child mortality), MDG 5 (improving maternal health) and MDG 7 (ensuring environment sustainability).

Braganza, the secretary-general of the LCP, stressed that “Substantial work at the regional and local level, which constitutes the government’s frontline institutions, will have to be undertaken if we are to meet the 2015 deadline for the MDGs.” 

Braganza is pushing for the cluster approach in pursuing local economic development in the Province of Pangasinan, through the One Pangasinan Alliance of Local Governments (Opal), an economic alliance of local governments in Western Pangasinan, that he once represented as a member of the House of Representatives (HOR).

Horacio “Boy” Morales, president of La Liga said since the successful achievement of the MDGs hinges on the capability of the local government units to provide funding and implement appropriate MDG support programs and projects, the partnership will focus on working with local governments, particularly in local planning, programming and resource mobilization to institutionalize MDG programs.

“There is a global clamor to make true on the MDG commitments.  For the Philippines, a concerted effort between government and the citizens around a participatory MDG localization process is a necessary ingredient in the country’s MDG breakthrough plan.” Roland Cabigas, managing director of La Liga said for his part.

While local governments have been implementing various development programs, the local initiatives, Cabigas noted, could be further enhanced and harnessed by the partnership toward achieving important MDGs targets.

PUBLICATION: Business Mirror
CORRESPONDENT: Jonathan Mayuga

NOTES: President Aquino witnessed the signing of the MOU for the project “Localizing the MDGs: Making it Work Where it Matters–Accelerating MDG Localization in the Eight Cities of Region 1” and lauded the initiative as “a big boost to government’s antipoverty campaign, which is in line with his administration’s MDG breakthrough plan.” This was made possible through the support of one of our partners, the League of Cities in the Philippines (LCP).

ADDRESS: http://www.businessmirror.com.ph/home/regions/4814-aquino-boosts-breakthrough-plan-for-mdg-localization-in-region-1

A Micah Challenge's paper highlights corruption as roadblock to ending poverty

chiara — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 15:44:13 -0500

A Micah Challenge paper being released on 9th December reveals a critical need for Christians to further engage with international advocacy efforts to tackle corruption, as a key tool to eradicate poverty.

The paper, being launched on International Anti-Corruption Day, refers to evidence of corruption negatively impacting the poor in Latin America, Asia, Africa and Europe. Open for Service: A Case for Good Governance urgently appeals for transparency in Government, business and the global Christian Church.

The document follows discussion between development practitioners, politicians, economists and academics reflecting the views of those living in extreme poverty and proposing solutions to corruption crimes, which could prevent Governments achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015. Joel Edwards, International Director of Micah Challenge said: “Corruption is a like a tower block on a runway. It accounts for over a trillion dollars going missing, and is a massive barricade to the well being of the poorest people in the world. It’s difficult to define, complex in its treatment and entrenched in business and political systems. No wonder it has gone on underground for so long. Simply, corruption kills people.”

Rt Rev. Dr Benjamin Kwashi, Archbishop of Jos in Central Nigeria, spoke on corruption as a global problem at Africa’s Transformation conference this year: “Compared to corruption in the West, Africa is an apprentice.”

The call for Good Governance comes alongside first-hand evidence on the effects of corruption on poverty released by multiple international stakeholders earlier this year.

Research in the World Bank's Africa Development Indicators 2010 report highlights the severe effects of ‘quiet corruption’ such as bribery, weak regulation and poor service delivery in the health, education and agriculture sectors of Africa. In one instance more than 50 percent of drugs sold in Nigerian drugstores in the 1990s were found to be counterfeit. The study also mentions that there are as many as 91 children per primary school teacher in the Central African Republic, compared with 22 children per teacher in Mauritius, due to absenteeism.

Case-studies from Peru, Cambodia and Zambia in a Tearfund report called Corruption and its Discontents similarly establishes that corruption and a culture of bribery form one of the biggest barriers to poverty eradication.

A female interviewee from Moyobamba, Peru said: “I took my daughter-in-law to the hospital. She was really sick with appendicitis. She was initially taken to one hospital but then she was referred elsewhere because they needed to operate on her. When we arrived at the second hospital, the nurse who was supposed to be supervising her said to me: “It is the end of my day and I am very busy. I cannot see to her.’ I pleaded with her to take care of her, and to give her the injections that she needed. I had to take her a gift, to persuade her to take proper care of her.”

TheOpen for Service paper highlights the role that churches can play in advocating for good governance in overcoming poverty. Former Director of the UN Millennium Campaign, Salil Shetty said in the foreword: “The people in the front-end of the evangelical churches know that if public resources are managed in a transparent and accountable manner, there is nothing stopping the world from achieving the MDGs by 2015.”

President of Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe and Emminent Person of the Centre For Peace Initiatives in Africa, Goodwill Shana, said: “The document captures the central role that governance plays in the broad agenda of poverty reduction and eradication.”

This paper launch follows Micah’s10.10.10 campaign where 60 million Christians in over 70 nations prayed for an end to extreme poverty. This global event formed part of a growing movement mobilizing the church to play a greater part in alleviating poverty.

To arrange an interview contact Comms Coordinator, Theresa Malinowska theresa@micahchallenge.org
Tel +44 (0)78 142 09442 / +44(0)207 367 6571

"Good governance is at the heart of all development progress and the Millennium Campaign welcomes the commitment from Micah Challenge to use the voices of its members to ensure that world leaders govern in a fair, transparent and accountable way... Micah Challenge has a critical role to play in raising the profile of governance issues as they relate to the MDGs and development and in keeping these issues on the public and political agenda."

Corinne Woods, Director, UN Millennium Campaign

United Nations Invites World to an Online Film Festival to Celebrate International Volunteer Day

chiara — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 11:43:05 -0500

Bonn, Germany – In the lead-up to International Volunteer Day (5 December), the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme invites the world to an online film festival this coming Saturday.

The online festival – which starts at 14:00 GMT+12 on 4 December – will cross the globe, stopping in 12 time zones to show how voluntary action is making a difference in tackling challenges related to environment, hunger, education, maternal health, gender equality, and HIV/AIDS. "These stories don't make the news, but they are changing the world," said UNV Executive Coordinator Flavia Pansieri.

"International Volunteer Day is a chance to recognize the contribution of volunteers, especially their role in helping to meet the Millennium Development Goals," she said. Annually, volunteers contribute US$ 400 billion to the global economy, according to the Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies.

Beginning at 14:00 GMT+12 on 4 December, festival participants will share the story of volunteers fighting the spread of HIV/AIDS in Vanuatu – 'the happiest country in the world'. From there, as it crosses the globe, the 24-hour event will invite people to share their ideas and voluntary actions that help the world achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

"On-site or online, in their own community or abroad, at the national or at the global level, volunteers deliberately take action to address peace and development issues such as ending hunger, improving healthcare, addressing conflict, tackling gender inequality and dealing with the impact of climate change," Ms. Pansieri said. "Volunteers don't wait for others to solve the problems; they engage and play an essential role as active citizens in shaping their societies."

Many of the stories that will be shown on 4 December were made by volunteers or inspired by volunteers working with a range of agencies, including the United Nations, the United Kingdom's Voluntary Service Overseas, the International Federation of the Red Cross, and civil society groups around the world.

The festival will pass through a number of countries, including: Fiji, Vanuatu, the Philippines, Lao PDR, Mongolia, Sri Lanka, Uzbekistan, Kenya, Cyprus, Albania, Zambia, Guinea Bissau, Spain, Liberia, Ghana, Haiti, Jamaica, Ecuador and Samoa. Online volunteers based in Malaysia and the United Kingdom and working with organizations in Guatemala, Nepal and Afghanistan will also be featured.

To participate, visit www.facebook.com/unvolunteers

For further information, contact:
Lisa Hiller, Share the Story Campaign Manager
Tel. +49 (0) 228-815-2161; e-mail: elisabeth.hiller@unvolunteers.org

About UNV: The United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme is the UN organization that promotes volunteerism to support peace and development worldwide. Volunteerism can transform the pace of and nature of development, and it benefits both society at large and the individual volunteer. UNV contributes to peace and development by advocating for volunteerism globally, encouraging partners to integrate volunteerism into development programming and mobilizing volunteers.

UNV volunteers work in more than 130 countries around the world. Last year, 7,545 UNV volunteers from 154 countries contributed their skills towards to the work of 20 United Nations organizations, 17 UN Missions, and many local institutions.

UNMC North America Kicks-off ‘MDGs Week’ at St. Michael’s College

Miki — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 15:27:00 -0500

Alison Gemgnani, North America Editorial and Advocacy Consultant, participated in the kick-off event of “MDGs Week” at St. Michael’s College in Colchester, Vermont. The event provided students with a comprehensive overview of the history of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), global progress to date and major outcomes of September’s MDG Review Summit in New York, including United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Every Women, Every Child: Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health, a $40 billion dollar strategy that could potentially save the lives of more than 16 million women and children.

As a donor country responsible for MDG 8: Global Partnership Development, Gemgnani outlined the US Government’s contributions in development assistance, debt relief and trade in addition to its development initiatives, including Feed the Future and the Global Health Initiative. She encouraged students to take action through enrolling their programs in Academic Impact, a new global initiative aiming to align higher education institutions with the United Nations. The initiative was launched by Secretary-General Ban on 18 November and provides a mechanism for colleges and universities around the world to commit themselves to the realization of fundamental principles of the United Nations mandate, in particular the achievement of the MDGs.

56 governors affirm MDG commitments

chiara — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 10:40:45 -0500

MANILA, Philippines – At least 56 provincial chief executives from all over the country have firmed up their commitment to observe the 2015 deadline for the achievement of Millennium Development Goals (MDG).

At the recent Local Government Units (LGU) Summit+3i Luzon in Legazpi, Albay Gov. Joey Salceda, host and convenor, said delegates agreed to a united climate change adaptation (CCA) efforts and committed to develop the resilience and capability of their localities to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change, using the precautionary principle.

The summit, held at the La Piazza Hotel and Convention Center, coincided with the convention of the League of Provinces of the Philippines (LPP) where 56 provincial governors and over a hundred vice governors, local government legislators and planners, scientists and members of non-government organizations attended.

“It was the biggest catch in Disaster Risk Reduction and CCA history — 56 provinces committing to put up their disaster management offices. It reaffirmed our pledge to attain our MDGs, particularly in reducing poverty, increasing food security, improving health and ensuring environmental sustainability which responds to the needs for resiliency or flexibility during disasters,” Salceda said.

The LGU Summit+3i also underscored the actions by local governments the world over to strengthen urban communities by achieving the MDGs. It was a follow up to the May 2010 World Disaster Reduction Campaign launched by the United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) with the theme ‘Making Cities Resilient: My city is getting ready!’

Albay has been active with CCA and DRR. It was named a Global Model in CCA and DRR, while Salceda was given recognition as Senior Global Champion.