Montenegro

Why we need the Millennium Development Goals

It is disturbing to understand that early in the 21st century the human family was still plagued by myriad serious problems, just a few of which are listed below:

• about 900 million people were estimated to live in slum-like conditions characterized by insecure tenure, inadequate housing and a lack of access to water or sanitation
• nearly one billion people still did not have access to safe drinking water
• by the end of 2001, an estimated 13 million children under 15 had lost one or both parents to AIDS in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean
• eleven million children below age five still died every year from preventable causes – about 30,000 a day.

 

Social evolution and economic development are, of course, never-ending efforts and progress can be slow, especially when measured on the scale of human lives but there was, without a doubt, a lot of work to do.

World leaders put forward a plan and take action

The state of affairs for the planet’s most beleaguered people was not lost on those whose business it is to try to create a better world, as the third millennium arrived.

After years of studies, debates and negotiations, world leaders gathered at United Nations (UN) Headquarters in September 2000 to ratify the Millennium Declaration, a wide-ranging commitment to improve the lot of the world’s most disadvantaged, downtrodden and discriminated against people and assure that we would not bequeath to future generations a rapidly dying planet. On September 8, 2000 the Millennium Declaration was adopted by all 189 member nations of the UN (the three nations to join the UN family since, including Montenegro, have ratified the declaration).

UN officials distilled the Millennium Declaration over the next year and on September 6, 2001 the Secretary General presented A Road Map Towards the Implementation of the United Nations Millennium Declaration.
 
The “Road Map” promised a Herculean effort to address what the UN considers the most serious, yet solvable problems faced by humanity. It set down eight specific goals - now known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) - to be achieved by 2015:

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
2. Achieve universal primary education
3. Promote gender equality and empower women
4. Reduce child mortality
5. Improve maternal health
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
7. Ensure environmental sustainability
8. Develop a global partnership for development

 

MDGs in the context of European integration

In November 2004, the European Commissioner in charge of Development and Humanitarian Aid, Louis Michel, eloquently described his passion to see the realization of the MDGs in a European Commission report:
“For me, the Millennium Goals must remain the beacon. My motto being ‘dare to dream, dare to try, dare to lose, dare to succeed,’ the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals is what I will fight for as a human being, as a citizen, as a politician, as EU Commissioner.” (page 1)
The Millennium Declaration dovetails closely with the EU’s Social Charter. Both documents seek to promote human development by expanding people’s choices and opportunities while ensuring that all individuals enjoy at least a minimal degree of social protection.”
The intentions of the two organizations are so similar that they made a decision to align them. In April 2004, UNDP and the EC recognized their common interest and concerns over social inclusion in a jointly organized workshop on aligning the EU social inclusion process and the MDGs, in Vilnius, Lithuania.