How successful was the UN in meeting their Millennium Development Goals for 2015? Hello everyone, the secretary generals for our upcoming MUN conference are myself, Joshua Fried, and Rachel Fox. We are both very experienced MUNers so you will be happy to know that for our GA debate you ll be in safe hands. We know that when you are in GA with hundreds of other delegates around you, it may seem a little bit daunting to stand up and speak on the stage but don t worry because if you pluck up the courage and raise interesting points then we will have a fantastic debate! This briefing paper will overview the Millennium Development Goals which the UN set out to achieve by next year and then analyse how successful the UN was in meeting these goals. It is then over to you to assess the status of these goals in your delegation s country and suggest measures which, if implemented, would cause any unmet goals to be achieved. What are the Millennium goals? There are 8 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) which the UN set out to achieve by 2015: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger Achieve universal primary education Promote gender equality and empower women Reduce child mortality Improve maternal health Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases Ensure environmental sustainability Global Partnership for development These 8 goals were created at the Millennium Summit in 2000 whereby all nations were to strive in achieving these goals by 2015. They committed countries to reach these targets which addressed the growing issue of increasing mortality amongst infants and their mothers, the issue of maintaining a sustainable food supply and ensuring everyone had the opportunity to primary education. Some of these goals have very nearly been achieved in some countries, however this has not been the case throughout the world. 1. Eradicate poverty and hunger The quantitative aim of this particular goal was to reduce the number of people living on less than $1.25 per day by half. This goal has been reported by the UN to be a success, being achieved in 2010 when only 22% of people living in developing regions had to survive on this meagre amount compared nearly half of the population in developing regions in 1990. Despite this goal being reached before the 2015 deadline some have attributed this to significant and impressive progress in China where the percentage of the population deemed to be in extreme poverty decreased from 60%-12%. This improvement though commendable shows the achievement of this goal worldwide
may not point to a dramatic reduction in poverty in all regions rather just in extraordinary progress in some, with report from the United Nations showing that several regions have not met the target, for example, in sub-saharan africa there has only been a reduction of 8%, from 56%-48%. Here we see that in the region where extreme poverty currently affects the greatest proportion of the population the goal to reduce extreme poverty has clearly not been met. With regards to extreme hunger success has been much more elusive. This goal has been monitored with reference to the prevalence of underweight children under 5 years of age and more reliably by the percentage of undernourished people. Progress in reducing the number of undernourished people has been very uneven, with the 6 out of 9 regions not meeting the target of halving this number as of 2010 and the proportion of undernourished people actually increasing from 7% to 10% in Western Asia. Overall the success in achieving MDG 1 has been distributed uneven globally meaning that though there have been major improvements in some regions, others yet to experience the benefit of alleviating extreme poverty and hunger by half. 2. Achieving universal primary education This was the second goal in the MDGs and this meant the UN strived to allow every child the chance to complete their primary education and two of the indicators the UN uses to highlight the developing situation are net enrolment in primary education and the literacy rates in 15-24 year olds. In 2000, when the MGDs were announced, nearly 100 million children of primary school were not in school and over 58% of these children were girls. The UN has made progress as by 2011 the number of children out of school had dropped to 57 million and also the enrolment rate across the world had increased from 83% to 90% between 2000 and 2011. However, despite the significant achievements, progress has slowed down and many feel that it is unlikely to reach the target that all children will be able to go through an entire primary school course. 3. Promote gender equality and empower women. The promotion of gender equality was to be monitored in education, employment and politics. In education the ratio of male to female students in various levels of education was measured. Overall in developing regions the target of having a ratio of female to male students of between 0.97-1.03 is expected to be met by regions by 2015, and was met in the primary and tertiary sectors by 2010. Variation in the ratio in individual regions increases as the level of education gets higher showing that at higher levels of education girls may still be significantly disadvantaged. In terms of employment, increase in the number of women who are employed has been rather modest with an only 3% increase in the number of women employees in developing regions. Political involvement of women, as measured by the proportion of seats they hold in government, has increased in all but one region and worldwide has seen an increase from 14% of seats in government in 2000 to 22% in 2014. However, worldwide only 1 in 5 elected politicians are women so a glass ceiling still exists in politics. 4. Reduce child mortality across the world The target was to reduce the rate of under 5 mortality by two-thirds between 1990 and 2015. Up until now, there has been success on this front with child mortality dropping almost 50% from 90 to 48 deaths per 1,000 live births between 1990 and 2013 and since 2000, vaccines for measles
have saved nearly 14 million lives. Preventable diseases are seen to be the main cause of under 5 deaths and many feel that more can be done save these children. In areas like sub-saharan Africa and Southern Asia, they still experience relatively high under 5 mortality rates with nearly 4 out of 5 under 5 deaths across the world occurring in these regions. This regional inequality has also been seen as a child born into poverty is twice as a likely to die before they reach 5 than those from wealthier backgrounds. The general consensus is more can be done as there are beliefs that that goal may not be reached in time. 5. Improve maternal health The overall aim of reducing maternal mortality by three quarters. Between 1990 and 2013 though significant improvements in maternal health have been achieved none of the developing regions had met the target of a 75% reduction. Unfortunately the vast majority of maternal deaths are avoidable and 99% of these deaths occur in developing countries so seeing that 2 years before the deadline none have reached this target is disappointing. However, effective measures intended to reduce maternal mortality have been implemented to between 1990 and 2013 with the percentage of deliveries overseen by a skilled healthcare professional increasing from 56-68% and the with 52% of women receiving 4 or more antenatal care visits compared to just 37% in 1990. Though provision of and access to health care before, during and after childbirth does seem to be improving the UN states that the level of maternal mortality remains unacceptably high so further measures must be put in place to ensure the reduction by 75% is met. 6. combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases There were two targets that had to be met to achieve this goal: By 2015, halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS By 2015, halt and begin to reverse the spread of malaria and other diseases Between 2000 and the present there have been major steps taken in achieving these two targets. Between 2000 and 2012, an estimated 3.3 million lives were saved due to the growth of malaria treatments and 90% of these lives were children under the age of five who live in sub-saharan Africa. Similar gains have been made with respect to the spread of tuberculosis (TB) throughout the world as 22 million lives have been saved since 1995 and some speculate that at these rates, the target for malaria and TB will be reached by 2015. Unfortunately, these results have not been reflected by the HIV/AIDS front as in 2012, nearly 600 children died every day because of the disease. Between 2001 and 2011, the number of newly infected fell by 21% but an estimate made that 2.3 million cases of all ages were newly infected in 2012 and 70% of these people were located in sub-saharan Africa. Many say not enough is being done to reduce these numbers and what is more shocking is the percentage of sub-saharan African men and women (aged between 15 and 24) who have comprehensive knowledge of HIV transmission being 39% and 28% respectively. The efforts by national programmes and global partners to reduce the impact of HIV on households, communities and children have increased but many believe that a greater force is needed to achieve this goal by 2015.
7. Ensure environmental sustainability This was to be measured with reference to loss of environmental resources, halve the proportion of people without safe drinking water and basic sanitation and to provide significant improvement to the lives of 100 million slum dwellers. Since 1990 the rate at which deforestation occurs has decreased from 8.3 million hectares per year in 1990 to 5.3 million hectares per year between 2000 and 2010. However still millions of hectares of a forest are lost every year primarily due to urbanisation and commercial agriculture. In addition to destruction of the environment from this point of view the carbon dioxide emissions continue their upward trend having increased by 50% since 1990. Since 1990 over 2.3 billion people have gained improved access to safe drinking water meaning the target of reducing the population without access to sustainable drinking water by half was met as early as 2010. Despite this success many people still rely upon unsafe water sources particularly in Oceana, Sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Asia. The sub-goal of improving basic sanitation has caused a over quarter of the world s population to gain access to better sanitation since 1990 but as ever this must be observed cautiously bearing in mind to the 1 billion people who must resort to open defecation. The final sub-goal of improving the lives of 100 million slum dwellers has been met, with over 200 million experiencing an improvement in their living conditions between 2000 and 2012. Yet the number of people living in slum conditions is actually increasing with one third of urban residents in developing regions still living in slum conditions. 8. Development of a global partnership to assist global development. Achieving this goal required six targets to be met which were: Develop further an open, rule-based, predictable, non-discriminatory trading and financial system Address the special needs of least developed countries Address the special needs of landlocked developing countries and small island developing States Deal comprehensively with the debt problems of developing countries In cooperation with pharmaceutical companies, provide access to affordable essential drugs in developing countries In cooperation with the private sector, make available benefits of new technologies, especially information and communications Overall, there have been advances made towards achieving this goal including the net amount raised from developed countries - who are members of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development - being $134.8 million which had been the highest recorded value since this began. In addition 80% of imports from developing countries have entered duty free and the numbers of Africans online has doubled, both highlighting major steps in promoting development in underdeveloped countries. Less economically developed countries (LEDCs) have also seen a reduction in their debts burdens to around 3.1% of their export revenue when compared to 12% back in 2000, however, they have experienced a slowing down of this reduction in recent times. Another drawback on this goal is some countries are not increasing their aid spending enough, for example in the UK aid spending has increased to 0.56% of GNI in 2012 from 0.27% in 1990, yet the internationally agreed target for rich countries was set at 0.7%. This final goal had the motive of being able to assist the economically weaker
countries, however, one of the major failures of it is its lack of definite numerical targets as seen in the previous goals. This is a major issue because without any real targets, it invites a great deal of ambiguity into the decision making of donating nations. What to do now? Overall, as we have shown, the United Nations Millenium Development Goals cover a whole range of issues from eradicating world hunger to promoting the development of international partnerships. Some have managed to make major steps towards achieving them whereas others have been lacking and more needs to be done by member states if they wish to have a chance to achieving these goals. So now its up to you to write a position paper on this topic. Don t worry, this only consists of 50 words highlighting your country s stance on the current issue and nothing more. These are due on 27th February 2014 and just email them to us at either jfried09@gwc.org.uk or rfox09@gwc.org.uk. Once this has been completed you need to begin writing your resolution and don t worry if you feel unsure as to how to write one, there is an example on our GWCMUN page. Things worth thinking about when writing: Does your country feel strongly about achieving the MDGs? How much does your country already contribute? Do these goals help your nation develop? Does your country feel more could be done? Some useful links to assist you in writing your resolution: http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/beyond2015-news.shtml http://www.unmillenniumproject.org/goals/ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-11364717 http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/interactive/2013/sep/24/millennium-developmentgoals-data-interactive http://huebler.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/oos.html http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/2014%20mdg%20report/mdg%202014%20english%20web. pdf For Country Profiles and lots of other useful information: http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/country_profiles/default.stm For issues of current international debate: http://www.newint.org/
http://www.idebate.org/ http://www.amnesty.org/