What are the United Nations Millennium Development Goals? Why they are important, and how you can help. This is a presentation that I gave to about 300 Chinese students at an Open Forum hosted by the World Academy for the Future of Women (WAFW) at Sias International University. As a member of the World Academy, all women design and execute service projects, linked to one or more of the UN Millenium Development Goals.

1. United Nations
Millennium Development Goals
What are the UN Millennium
Development Goals? Why they are
important, and how you can help.
Robert Ford
World Academy Facilitator

2. Agenda
• What is the United Nations (UN) and what is its
purpose?
• What are the UN Millennium Development Goals?
• What progress has been made?
• Why are the UN Millennium Development Goals
important?
• How can you help?

3. United Nations (UN)
• The United Nations was formed in 1945
• It now has 193 Member States (China
was one of the original 51 Member States)
• The organization has 4 main purposes
– Peace and Security
– Development
– Human Rights
– Harmonizing the relationships and actions of nations

4. UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
• In 2000, all member states signed the Millennium
Declaration.
• The Millennium Development Goals are designed to
improve the lives of the world's poorest people.
• The MDGs each have measurable targets and clear
deadlines.
• All member states committed to achieving the goals by
2015.

5. UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)

6. UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
• The UN MDGs are big, audacious 15-year goals, designed
to help the world make progress towards an envisioned
future.
• They were designed to:
• Be clear and compelling
• Be a unifying focal point
• Catalyze team spirit
• Have a clear finish line

7. Other Big Audacious Goals
8 years
later
“I believe that this nation should “One small step for man, one
commit itself to achieving the goal, giant leap for mankind.”
before this decade is out, of landing a ~ Commander Neil Armstrong
man on the Moon and returning him July 20, 1969
safely to the Earth”
~ President John F. Kennedy
May 25, 1961

8. Other Big Audacious Goals
The Human Genome
OLPC - 6 year effort to provide Project – 15 year effort to
educational opportunities for identify all 15,000-20,000
the world's most isolated and genes in human DNA,
poorest children by giving each completed in just 10 years.
child a rugged, low-cost, low-
power, connected laptop
Beijing 2008 – 8 year effort to
prepare and host the biggest
and best Olympic games ever

9. UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)

10. Goal #1 - Eradicate Extreme
Poverty and Hunger
Targets:
• Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people
whose income is less than 8 Yuan ($1.25) a day.
• Achieve full and productive employment and decent work
for all, including women and young people.
• Halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people
who suffer from hunger.

11. Goal #2 – Achieve Universal
Primary Education
Targets:
• Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls
alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary
schooling

12. Goal #3 – Promote Gender
Equality and Empower Women
Targets:
• Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary
education, preferably by 2005, and in all levels of education
no later than 2015

13. Goal #4 – Reduce
Child Mortality
Targets:
• Reduce by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-
five mortality rate

14. Goal #5 – Improve
Maternal Health
Targets:
• Reduce by three quarters, between 1990 and 2015, the
maternal mortality ratio.
• Achieve, by 2015, universal access to reproductive health.

15. Goal #6 – Combat HIV/AIDS,
Malaria and Other Diseases
Targets:
• Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the spread of
HIV/AIDS.
• Achieve, by 2010, universal access to treatment for
HIV/AIDS for all those who need it.
• Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the incidence of
malaria and other major diseases.

16. Goal #7 – Ensure
Environmental Sustainability
Targets:
• Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country
policies and programs and reverse the loss of environmental
resources.
• Reduce biodiversity loss, achieving, by 2010, a significant reduction
in the rate of loss.
• Halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access
to safe drinking water and basic sanitation.
• By 2020, to have achieved a significant improvement in the lives of
at least 100 million slum dwellers.

17. Goal #8 – Develop a Global
Partnership for Development
Targets:
• Develop further an open, rule-based, predictable, non-discriminatory trading
and financial system.
• Address the special needs of the 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 the benefits of new
technologies, especially information and communications.

18. What progress has been made?
• Let’s take a look at what progress has been
made so far.
• Remember, we have just over three years left
to accomplish these goals.

19. What progress has been made?
• The target of reducing extreme poverty by half was met in
2010, five years ahead of the deadline.
• The proportion of people lacking dependable access to
improved sources of drinking water was halved by 2010.
• There has been a significant improvement in the lives of over
200 million slum dwellers (double the 100 million target).
• Primary school enrolment of girls now equals that of boys.

20. What progress has been made?
• Many countries facing the greatest challenges have made
significant progress towards universal primary education.
• Child survival progress is gaining momentum.
• Access to treatment for people living with HIV increased in
all regions.
• The world is on track to achieve the target of halting and
beginning to reverse the spread of tuberculosis.
• Global malaria deaths have declined.

21. What progress has been made?
• Vulnerable employment has decreased only marginally over
twenty years.
• Decreases in maternal mortality are far from the 2015 target.
• Use of improved sources of water remains lower in rural
areas.
• Hunger remains a global challenge.
• The number of people living in slums continues to grow.

22. What can we learn from the UN MDGs?
• S.M.A.R.T. goals work!

23. What can we learn from the UN MDGs?
• The MDGs are interlinked — progress in one
goal supports progress in others.
• Gender equality and women’s empowerment
have large multiplier effects on other MDGs.
• Education also underpins the entire set of
MDGs.
• Eliminating major diseases improves child and
maternal health, while contributing to higher
productivity.

24. By using a holistic approach, leverage points are identified,
where you can maximize impact for each unit of effort.

25. What can we learn from the UN MDGs?
• Environmental sustainability is needed both to
achieve the MDGs and sustain progress.
• Investing in techniques that enhance agricultural
productivity reduces hunger and improves the
health and education status of households.
• Promoting employment-intensive growth
positively impacts on many of the MDGs.

26. What do the UN MDGs mean to us?
“Our most basic common link is
that we all inhabit this planet.
We all breathe the same air. We
all cherish our children's future.
And we are all mortal. “
~ President John F. Kennedy

27. What do the UN MDGs mean to us?
“This is the moment when we must
come together to save this planet. Let us
resolve that we will not leave our
children a world where the oceans rise
and famine spreads and terrible storms
devastate our lands.”
~ President Barack Obama

28. What do the UN MDGs mean to us?
We need to think of the future and
the planet we are going to leave to
our children and their children.
~ Former UN Secretary-General
Kofi Annan

29. What do the UN MDGs mean to us?
“The Earth is not a gift from
our parents, it is a loan from
our children”
~ Kenyan Proverb
By all of us being part of the solution, we can together
overcome some of society’s greatest challenges before
the global population grows to 9 billion.

30. What can you do?
• A lot of things are already happening on the Sias
campus.
• All World Academy for the Future of Women members
work on projects designed to advance the UN
Millennium Goals.
– Learn more about their projects by visiting the
World Academy office in the Administration Building.
– Help make a difference by joining one of
their project teams.

31. Summary
With all of your help, the Millenium
Development Goals can be achieved by 2015.
Be part of the solution to some of the world’s
Most pressing problems.
Learn more about how you can make a
difference by visiting the World Academy
Office in the Administration Building.
Robert Ford
mail@robertford.us Fordrm
www/linkedin.com/in/fordrm 2653462978
www.facebook.com/RobertMFord