Millennium Goals

MDGs summit axis for reaching goals at target date

(Agencies)
Updated: 2010-09-21 01:11

UNITED NATIONS - The head of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), Helen Clark, said here Monday that the outcome of the summit can be a real turning point for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and she urged world leaders to turn that promise of a decade ago into reality.

The statement came as the UNDP administrator was addressing the opening session of the high-level meeting on the UN anti-poverty goals, which opened here Monday and is expected to end on Wednesday with the adoption of an outcome document to renew the world commitment to meet the MDGs targets by 2015.

"The challenge will be to follow words with action to bring about positive change to the billions of people who need the MDG promise of a decade ago," Clark said, noting the importance of the interconnectedness of the MDGs. "One's progress can spare progress on another," she said.

The MDGs are a set of eight international development goals designed to reduce poverty and improve the lives of people in less developed countries. The goals were first set at the Millennium Summit in 2000, and are due to be achieved by 2015.

Referring to the series of global crises, natural disasters and ongoing conflicts during the recent years, Clark said it does not make it easier, but nor do they make it impossible.

Meanwhile, Clark pointed out how successful UNDP projects of bringing basic generators to communities in Burkina Faso transformed the lives of women and how in Ethiopia UNDP helped farmers to sell their produce to fair prices by supporting the development of that important commodities exchange.

"If programs like these work, what can we do to bring them to scale elsewhere?", she questioned.

"Failure in meeting the MDGs cannot be blamed on the world lacking the resources and the know-how to do so. There is a very wide range of proven policies and interventions which will adapt to national context and will ensure progress," Clark said.