Draft Resolution on the UN Millennium Development Goals

In September 2000, the UN created the Millennium Development Goals to bring some fundamental rights to all the peoples of Earth. These rights include; Freedom, Equality, Solidarity, Tolerance, as well as Respect for Nature and Shared Responsibility. These goals were created to ensure a better life for all humanity, to help eliminate all unnecessary pain and loss of life as well as protect the planet.

The United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)

Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

· Reduce by half the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day

· Reduce by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger

Achieve universal primary education

· Ensure that all boys and girls complete a full course of primary schooling

Promote gender equality and empower women

· Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015

Reduce childhood mortality

· Reduce by two thirds the mortality rate among children under five

Improve maternal health

· Reduce by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio

Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases

· Halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS

· Halt and begin to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases

Ensure environmental stability

· Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes; reverse loss of environmental resources

· Reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water

· Achieve significant improvement in lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers, by 2020

Develop a global partnership for development

· Develop further an open trading and financial system that is rule-based, predictable and non-discriminatory, includes a commitment to good governance, development and poverty reduction— nationally and internationally

· Address the least developed countries' special needs. This includes tariff- and quota-free access for their exports; enhanced debt relief for heavily indebted poor countries; cancellation of official bilateral debt; and more generous official development assistance for countries committed to poverty reduction

· Address the special needs of landlocked and small island developing States

· Deal comprehensively with developing countries' debt problems through national and international measures to make debt sustainable in the long term

· In cooperation with the developing countries, develop decent and productive work for youth

· In cooperation with pharmaceutical companies, provide access to affordable essential drugs in developing countries

· In cooperation with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies— especially information and communications technologies

Millennium Declaration

In September 2000, the Millennium Declaration was formed to create “indispensable foundations of a more peaceful, prosperous and just world.” There was an agreement on “our commitment to the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations” as well as to “establish a just and lasting peace all over the world.” Hence, the MDGs were born to do just these things.

Develop a Global Partnership for Development

Access to essential drugs has increased five-fold, also information and communication has become more accessible globally and most developing countries are getting assistance with their substantial debts. However, youth represent half of the around 192 million unemployed, especially young females, antiretroviral drugs only reach 1 in 5 and less than 10% of people in developing countries have access to the internet.

Background Guide

Cost of MDGs: Using two different approaches, the World Bank estimates that, if countries improve their policies and institutions, the additional foreign aid required to reach the Millennium Development Goals by 2015 is between $40-$60 billion a year. This estimate is consistent with other agencies’ estimates of the costs of achieving individual goals, such as those for education and health. By itself, this additional aid will not be sufficient to attain the goals, as many countries will have to reform their policies and improve service delivery to make the additional spending effective.

Cited from www.worldbank.org

The target for the legitimate level of foreign aid for all industrial countries is 0.7% of their GNP. It is interesting to note that not one of the G8 countries has even come close to the target but five countries have reached and surpassed it: Sweden , Norway , Denmark , Holland , and Luxembourg .

GDP: A region’s Gross Domestic Project, or GDP, is one of several measures of the size of its economy. The GDP of a country is defined as the market value of all final goods and services produced within a country in a given period of time. It is also considered the sum value added at every stage of production of all final goods and services produced within a country at a given period of time.

There are many criticisms of how GDO is used. Some of these include:

GDP does not take into account the black market, where the money spent is not registered results in an inaccurate or abnormally low GDP figures.
The mainstream economic analysis ignores the environment, subsistence production and domestic work. In other words, the current system deems child-rearing and housekeeping valueless.
It also ignores volunteer and unpaid work.
GDP does not take into account the disparity in incomes between the rich and the poor.
If a nation does not spend, but saves and invests overseas, its GDP will be diminished in comparison to one that spends borrowed money; thus accumulated savings and debt are not taken into account so long as adequate financing continues.

http://www.un.org/millennium/declaration/ares552e.htm

http://unstats.un.org/unsd/mdg/Resources/Static/Products/Progress2006/MDGReport2006.pdf

http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/index.html

https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html