Making Poverty History

We are the first generation that can put an end to extreme poverty.

Proud cultivators of a gorgeous field of cassava grown by the women’s cooperative in Cameroon. Photo by Andrew Kang Bartlett

The Millennium Development Goals
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are our generation’s ambitious project to do just that — end extreme poverty. More 150 heads of state at the United Nations Millennium Summit adopted the goals the United Nations Millennium Summit in September 2000. The goals include:

• Halving the proportion of people living in poverty and hunger by 2015
• Ensuring primary schooling for all children and
• Reversing the spread of HIV/AIDS, malaria and other major diseases
  Download or order this essential educational tool!
  
  Making Poverty History: Dramas, Simulations and Worship Resources on the Millennium Development Goals
  
  Making Poverty History, a 28-page booklet produced by the Presbyterian Hunger Program and Church World Service, is a collection of simulations, skits and worship activities on hunger and poverty. Activities relate to the Millennium Development Goals (MDG): Hunger and Poverty, Education, Health, Environment/Water, and Partners in Development. Each section contains facts on the MDG theme, a story addressing the theme and assorted interactive ways to engage people on that theme.
  
  $1.00, PDS# 74360-07-364
  
  

The Millennium Campaign
The Millennium Campaign was launched in October 2002 to encourage citizens around the world in their efforts to hold governments to account for the promises they made at the September 2000 Millennium Summit. Working at both the national and international levels, the ambition of the Campaign is to inspire a global movement to achieve the goals and eradicate extreme poverty by 2015. The premise of the Millennium Campaign is simple: we are the first generation that can put an end to extreme poverty around the world, and we refuse to miss this opportunity.

Did you know that all 191 member states of the United Nations have pledged to achieve the following by the year 2015:

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger by reducing by half the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day and reducing by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger.
2. Achieve universal primary education by ensuring that all boys and girls complete a full course of primary schooling.
3. Promote gender equality and empower women by eliminating gender disparity in primary and secondary education preferably by 2005 and at all levels by 2015.
4. Reduce child mortality by reducing by two thirds the mortality rate among children under five.
5. Improve maternal health by reducing by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio.
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases by halting and beginning to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS.
7. Ensure environmental sustainability by integrating the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programs, reversing loss of environmental resources, reducing by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water, and achieving significant improvements in lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by 2020.
8. Develop a global partnership for development.

The world is financially and structurally capable of achieving these goals. What will make or break them is political will. All the citizens of the world must encourage their governments to place their full force behind this agenda. [Learn more about these goals and the progress to date]

As the world's superpower, the United States does not struggle as much as some countries with extreme poverty or infant mortality or safe drinking water, although these problems certainly exist in this country. An important role the United States can play towards achievement of the  Millennium Development Goals is to support goal #8 by being a good global partner. Some of the steps the United States agreed to take included addressing the least developed countries' special needs with tariff and quota free access for their exports, dealing comprehensively with developing countries' debt problems, providing access to affordable essential drugs in developing countries, and making available the benefits of new information and communications technologies to developing countries.

As concerned and supportive citizens, we should call our congressional representatives and ask them what their stance is on the Millennium Development Goals. We must write the White House to keep our government accountable for the promises it made. The cancellation of illegitimate and hurtful debts of poor nations is critical if many of them are to meet the milestones of the MDGs. Right now, you can encourage your congressional representatives to support the Jubilee Act.
[Learn more about the Jubilee Act]

A kindergarten child in a rural village of Cameroon. Photo by Andrew Kang BartlettLearn more about the Millennium Development Goals and their implementation.

Learn more about the One Campaign which works to build political will in the United States to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

One voice at a time, we must convince our government that Americans believe in and support the Millennium Development Goals. If we are silent, how will our government know that we want them to be working for a more just and promising future?